Breaking The Experience: Effects of Questionnaires in VR User Studies

TLDR

Questionnaires are widely used in VR studies, yet moving from virtual to physical environments to answer them can introduce systematic biases, motivating a shift toward administering them within VR to ease participation and reduce the Break in Presence. This study systematically investigates how interrupting the VR experience with questionnaires affects presence, using physiological data as an objective continuous measure. In a 50‑participant user study with a VR shooter at two immersion levels, participants completed a questionnaire either inside or outside VR while physiological signals were recorded. The results show that in‑VR questionnaires reduce the Break in Presence without altering self‑reported player experience.

Abstract

Questionnaires are among the most common research tools in virtual reality (VR) evaluations and user studies. However, transitioning from virtual worlds to the physical world to respond to VR experience questionnaires can potentially lead to systematic biases. Administering questionnaires in VR (inVRQs) is becoming more common in contemporary research. This is based on the intuitive notion that inVRQs may ease participation, reduce the Break in Presence (BIP) and avoid biases. In this paper, we perform a systematic investigation into the effects of interrupting the VR experience through questionnaires using physiological data as a continuous and objective measure of presence. In a user study (n=50), we evaluated question-asking procedures using a VR shooter with two different levels of immersion. The users rated their player experience with a questionnaire either inside or outside of VR. Our results indicate a reduced BIP for the employed inVRQ without affecting the self-reported player experience.