Using VR as a New Pedagogical Approach for Food Science and Technology Education in Hong Kong

Abstract

This study explores the potential of Virtual Reality (VR) as a pedagogical tool for teaching Food Science and Technology to junior secondary students in Hong Kong. Traditional cooking education faces significant challenges including safety risks, resource constraints, and limited hands-on practice opportunities, issues particularly acute in Hong Kong where teacher shortages and lack of standardized textbooks compound these difficulties. The VR game was designed specifically for entry-level junior secondary students, incorporating scaffolded learning of both theoretical food science concepts and practical cookery skills aligned with Hong Kong's Technology and Living curriculum. Unlike traditional digital games, the VR environment enables three-dimensional spatial visualization of cooking processes, hand-tracking for motor skill development, and immersive procedural learning that closely mimics real kitchen experiences. This teaching experiment compared learning outcomes between students using a custom-developed VR cooking game ("Food Science Academy VR") and those watching video recordings of the same content. Four Secondary 1 (Grade 7 / K7) students participated in the experiment, with two engaging in VR gameplay and two viewing recorded gameplay videos. Assessment included both written tests and practical cooking tasks. Preliminary results indicated that VR users demonstrated superior knowledge retention and practical performance, though the study acknowledges significant limitations including the small sample size and the artificial nature of the video control condition, which does not represent actual traditional teaching practices in Hong Kong schools. While findings are preliminary, they suggest VR's unique affordances—particularly spatial visualization and embodied interaction, may offer advantages over both passive video instruction and potentially traditional methods for teaching procedural cooking skills. However, questions remain about the resource feasibility of implementing such technology in Hong Kong's educational context.