A Study on Virtual Exhibition Planning and Teaching Methods using the Metaverse Platform

Purpose: The educational significance of this study lies in the fact that through the exhibition planning course for the digital beauty curriculum utilizing the metaverse platform developed herein, students can independently explore media technology and virtual spaces, communicate with each other, experience new methods and meaningful experiences, and acquire and master various digital technologies while enhancing their creativity through process-centered activities. Method: An experiment was conducted with 40 second-year beauty majors to select a digital beauty course suitable for exhibition-based project learning using the ZEPETO metaverse platform, chosen through case studies related to the research topic. The experiment aimed to explore efficient teaching methods for virtual exhibition planning courses and verify student satisfaction. Pre- and post-course satisfaction surveys were administered , and comparative analysis was performed using a paired t-test. Results: First, we selected ZEPETO among metaverse platforms to develop a new form of exhibition class free from temporal and spatial constraints. Second, a paired t-test was conducted to analyze the difference in class satisfaction between existing digital beauty education and digital education utilizing the ZEPETO metaverse. The results showed a significant improvement in post-satisfaction compared to pre-satisfaction. Third, during the metaverse experience, recreational experiences, relational experiences, and escapist experiences were found to have a significant positive (+) effect on satisfaction. Therefore, metaverse experience factors suggest they act as key elements that go beyond simply stimulating learning interest. They promote learners' social interaction, emotional connection, and autonomous participation, ultimately enhancing class satisfaction and learni ng outcomes. Conclusion: Therefore, future metaverse-based education requires cognitive design elements that induce educational immersion and the establishment of creative experiential environments where learners can autonomously create aesthetic value. If educational content development utilizing diverse media for new major courses continues in step with this, educational effectiveness can also be enhanced. While this study involved 40 beauty major university students and thus faces limitations in generalizing its findings to broader educational contexts, its positive results from the virtual exhibition class using a metaverse platform suggest the need for follow-up research on education utilizing diverse metaverse platforms.