Visiting a milk factory without gumboots: Students´ attitudes towards a virtual field trip

A desktop Virtual Reality (VR) application showing a milk powder production facility has been developed. It was used as a medium for conducting a virtual field trip (VFT) to expose students to processing plant environments, which are becoming increasingly difficult to visit due to availability and safety reasons. The application comprises 360° panorama images of the milk powder process plant and additional materials such as diagrams, supplemental text, videos and animations. This paper describes a VFT study conducted using the VR application, comparing it to a real field trip. The results provide insights for developing similar VFT.