Speech Lab VR: A Virtual Reality System for Improving Presentation Skills

Abstract

Presentation skills are considered as the essential communication skills for university students to be successful in their academic studies and future professional careers. Despite their importance, many university students encounter difficulties during the presentations, such as low confidence, unclear speech, wrong pronunciation, difficulty of managing nervousness, lack of eye contact, and ineffective time management. Moreover, delivering an effective presentation contributes to creating a credible and professional image, and facilitating future career advancement. Inspired by these challenges, this research aims to design and develop a virtual simulation environment named Speech Lab VR by applying the virtual reality technology. The Speech Lab VR system enables university students to self-practice their presentations in a controllable setting and provides them with constructive feedback for self-improvement. The goal of this research project is to enhance the university students' presentation skills which can lead to improve performance in their academic presentations and better prepare them for future career opportunities.