3. Method
3.1. Participants
The participants consisted of undergraduate students from the department of Interior Architecture and
Environmental Design at Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey. Ninety senior students (45 females and 45 males) were chosen randomly according to gender from the 4th year ‘Interior Design’ studio with cluster sampling. As 4th year students they were familiar with computer-based environments due to the computer-based courses that they took during the second and third years of their education and had a sufficient design education background.
3.2. Procedure
The participants were seated at the computer and tested individually. They navigated the desktop VE from an
egocentric reference frame by utilizing the keyboard for walking and the mouse for changing their points of view. Each participant was given 3 minutes to acquaint themselves with the keyboard and mouse within the SL environment. They navigated in an open environment to become familiar with the virtual world. The VE, which was designed in SL, consisted of 2 floors with 6 rooms; 3 on the ground floor, 3 on the first floor and 2 staircases (Figure 1). The staircases were located on both sides of the building’s entrance.