Shopping From the List: Teaching Middle School Students Grocery Shopping Skills Via Non-Immersive Virtual Reality

Abstract

Previous researchers determined virtual reality (VR) is an effective and efficient technology-based intervention for teaching life skills to students with disabilities. However, few researchers have explored the use of VR to teach community-based life skills, such as grocery shopping from a list. In this concurrent baseline multiple-probe single-case design study, researchers explored the effectiveness of a non-immersive VR program in teaching three middle school students with disabilities the important community-based life skill of grocery shopping. Researchers concluded two main results: (a) although each participant reached 100% independent accuracy for two consecutive probe sessions, researchers could not determine a functional relation between the non-immersive VR and participants' independent accuracy due to the read-aloud accommodation provided to two of the three participants after their first intervention probe, and (b) all participants acquired the skill in a relatively short amount of time. Implications for practice are discussed.