DEVELOPMENT OF THE METAVERSE TO PROMOTE LEARNING IN CULTURAL TOURISM AND LOCAL WISDOM SITES IN NAM NAO DISTRICT, PHETCHABUN PROVINCE

Abstract

This research aimed 1) to study the knowledge related to the art and culture of Nam Nao District, Phetchabun Province 2) to develop a metaverse to promote learning in cultural heritage and local wisdom tourism sites in Nam Nao District, Phetchabun Province and 3) to test and evaluate the effectiveness of the metaverse in promoting learning in cultural heritage and local wisdom tourism sites in Nam Nao District, Phetchabun Province. The research and development process can be categorized into three stages;  Stage 1, collect and extract the knowledge contents by selecting from the top 10 websites with the highest search statistics on Google Search Engine. The extracted knowledge structures were verified and given tacit knowledge from 10 specialists who have more experience about Namnaw district’s cultures and local wisdoms  than 10 years Stage 2, develop the Metaverse using a spaCIAL.io application that was integrated with Google Sites application and   Stage 3, evaluate the effectiveness, learning support, and tourism motivation provided by the media. The analysis is conducted using the mean, standard deviation, and hypothesis testing through Pearson correlation analysis.

This research found  that the extracted cultural knowledge of Nam Nao District consists has 10 nodes and 2 levels. The Metaverse consisted of 3 modules: 1) representation of  the human through the avatar, 2) learning  in  knowledge stages , and 3) accessing the in-depth associated knowledge. In overall, tourists satisfied  to Metaverse’s performance at high level. The Metaverse helped to promote learning and build tourism motivation at high level.  The MetaVerse’s learning promoting was no correlation  with the motivation for tourism.