Virtual Reality and Scope Sensitivity in a Choice Experiment About Coastal Erosion

Choice experiment surveys are a commonly used method to learn the general public’s priorities and willingness to pay for different levels of environmental quality. However, results can be sensitive to the framing and presentation of alternative scenarios used in these surveys. Respondents need to understand what they are valuing or they will use simplified heuristics to decide and the results will lack external validity. Visualisation techniques have been found to improve participant’s understanding. Virtual reality technologies may be superior to static image presentations but have so far been used in very few studies, probably due to the complexity and cost of developing and delivering the virtual environments to participants. For this study I developed virtual reality scenarios for a web survey about coastal erosion management using free, easy-to-use software and Google Earth satellite imagery. While this method lacks the photorealism that can be obtained from expensive GIS and rendering packages, the results from three different choice tasks show that the virtual reality treatment reduces choice error, improves scope sensitivity and is more interesting for participants when compared with static images.