Living in Poverty: A Virtual Reality Simulated Experience

Smith-Carrier was awarded a SSHRC grant to develop, with a Participatory Action Research team and research participants, a poverty simulation using a virtual reality platform, and assess its efficacy.

This research seeks to create and evaluate a virtual reality (VR) poverty simulation that was previously developed in a face-to-face format (see Smith-Carrier et al., 2019). We aim to work with a team, including a VR design studio, to develop this interactive VR poverty simulation, and evaluate its impacts. Educators have utilized the in-person version of the simulation to increase people’s understanding of the causes, consequences, and experiences of living in poverty. As the in-person simulation requires significant time and preparation to conduct, this VR tool will expand the reach of the poverty simulation and make it fully accessible to all VR users. Once we create and pilot the VR simulation with community social service providers and Participatory Action Research team members, we aim to evaluate its impacts using qualitative research methods. Using a case study design (Yin, 2011), we will collect data from interviews and focus groups to a sample of individuals agreeing to pilot the VR simulation. Utilizing a purposive and maximum variation sampling and recruitment strategy (Patton, 2002), we will recruit people to engage in the VR poverty simulation and participate in the research. The purpose of the research is to create the experiential VR poverty simulation, and to evaluate its utility for a range of audiences. The research questions to guide this work include: (a) in what ways, if any, does participating in a VR poverty simulation impact participants’ beliefs about poverty and their attitudes towards people living in poverty; (b) what dimensions or features of the VR poverty simulation are helpful, or not, in facilitating potential shifts in participants’ thinking; (c) what could be tweaked, modified, or discarded to make the VR experience more appealing, informative, and accessible?; and (d) does participating in the VR poverty simulation motivate participants to take action(s) to reduce poverty, and if so, what actions? We will conduct an active knowledge mobilization plan to co-create knowledge on the VR poverty simulation and disseminate it widely in the Vancouver Island community and beyond.