Using a virtual reality interview simulator to explore factors influencing people's behavior

TL;DR

This study uses a virtual reality interview simulator to identify factors influencing interview anxiety, revealing question type as the most significant factor and providing insights for designing better VR interview training tools.

Contribution

It systematically investigates multiple variables affecting interview anxiety in VR, highlighting the impact of question type, realism, preparation, and interviewer attitude.

Findings

Question type significantly affects anxiety levels.

Realism, preparation, and interviewer attitude influence experience.

Timing has minimal impact on interview anxiety.

Abstract

Virtual reality interview simulator (VRIS) provides an effective and manageable approach for candidates prone to being very nervous during interviews, yet, the major anxiety-inducing elements remain unknown. During an interview, the anxiety levels, overall experience, and performance of interviewees might be affected by various circumstances. By analyzing electrodermal activity and questionnaire, we investigated the influence of five variables: (I) \textit{Realism}; (II) \textit{Question type}; (III) \textit{Interviewer attitude}; (IV) \textit{Timing}; and (V) \textit{Preparation}. As such, an orthogonal design $L_8(4^1 \times 2^4)$ with eight experiments ($O A_8$ matrix) was implemented, in which 19 college students took part in the experiments. Considering the anxiety, overall experience, and performance of the interviewees, results indicate that \textit{Question type} plays a major role; secondly, \textit{Realism}, \textit{Preparation}, and \textit{Interviewer attitude} all have some degree of influence; lastly, \textit{Timing} have little to no impact. Specifically, professional interview questions elicited a greater degree of anxiety than personal ones among the categories of interview questions. This work contributes to our understanding of anxiety-stimulating factors during job interviews in virtual reality and provides cues for designing future VRIS.