Virtual Worlds in Education

Diego LaraDaisy Cen

Topic: Psychology

The study of human’s behavior according to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

Student’s Task:

• To test an individual Sim (avatar) how important each “need” is in a human being, and how does it affect.

• To also test how important it is to fulfill the wants of a sim (reflects how important it is for a human being to fulfill these aspirations)

E.g

• When a sim desperately needs to have a social life- they turn to see imaginary things around such as this social bunny:

Advantages:

• It would be more simple to study a virtual model of a human (it might damage real human beings)

• Classes will include to test the sim in different ways according to their "needs" (What do they do when the social bar is low?"

• Is more entertaining to study while you are playing• You can edit your sim and make it look like you- or

better.• Easier to study a sim- They are very expressive• You can fast forward time, and save your owns!

Disadvantages

1. You can't really depend that all humans will react that way. It is more like a prediction.

2. You can't assume that the same results will correspond to people who are handicapped.

3. It is qualitative data- it is not exact as a quantitative would be.

4. Maybe Maslow's hierarchy needs more than what it has, we cant rely on only that.