Educational Seismology through an Immersive Virtual Reality Game: Design, Development and Pilot Evaluation of User Experience

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Overall, the study is interesting and relevant, but would need a lot of revision if it were to be published publicly.

Firstly, the article lacks a literature review section and it is suggested that the authors need to add a literature review.

Secondly, there have been similar studies using VR to teach earthquake simulation, how does this study by the authors highlight the differences from other similar studies? The authors need to justify this part, how is your study better than other studies of the same type?

Further, the data analysis process is too simple. It is recommended that a more scientific and reasonable statistical method be used to statistically analyze your questionnaire data. A complete statistical analysis process is a must. Also, more specificity is recommended regarding the research questions.

Also, the author's VR presentation is based on 3D models, how do you solve the problem of lack of "realism"? How can we make it more immersive for students? Compared with some VR technology that relies on real environments.

Moreover, with regard to teaching, has any thought been given to how to conduct large-scale classes and how to train teachers to conduct them?

Finally, it is recommended that the discussion and conclusion sections be revised based on the above revisions and based on the revised content.

Some English grammatical errors suggest further careful proofreading and revision.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

It’s my pleasure to review this paper. During the review process, I found that there are a few problems in the paper. The following are my suggestions for the paper, which I hope will be helpful to the authors.

 First of all, it can be affirmed that the research design of VRQuake in the paper is interesting and professional, but it is only a scenario design based on VR technology, which is not representative of the emergent situation that will happen during an earthquake, therefore, there are limitations in the research design.

Secondly, the overall quality of the paper is not high (more like a case analysis report), which is more suitable for a conference paper. It’s suggested that the authors should not just use Qualitative Analysis, and neglect the importance of Quantitative Analysis, for reference, such as referring to the paper cited in number 15 in the paper （https://doi.org/10.1007/s10055-018-0376-x）and other literature to strengthen the research quality of the paper.

 Finally, the authors should be clear and explicit that VR is just a technological support and how to better utilize the technology in Educational Seismology, the motivation of this research should be mentioned in the introduction rather than in focusing on the VR technology. As mentioned above, could the authors add an experimental design to verify the feasibility of using VR technology in Educational Seismology, a quantitative approach to research is more scientific as well as intuitive. Therefore, it is recommended that the author make a major revision.

 I wish the authors all the very best with this study.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The paper is good to be published almost as it is. Interesting and useful for some contexts in particular.
The author/s should take a second look at the English used. Some minor aspects to be reviewed or clarified (Taken into consideration these propositions suggest -351) 

Regarding the references, there are references from 2023 that could be added.
Implications and future research are clearly stated; limitations should be explained in more detail and not only using some key ideas in parentheses. 

The English used is correct and very academic. Nonetheless, a second review would do good to the final version of the paper. 

Author Response

Please see the attachment. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

After the author's revisions, although the article still has some minor flaws, it can be published.

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors have made accordingly revisions as suggested. I believe that this study can be accepted for publication. Finally, I wish the authors all the very best with this study.