A Literature Review on Immersive Virtual Reality in Education: State of the Art and Perspectives.

Abstract

Since the first time the term "Virtual Reality" (VR) has been used back in the 60s, VR has evolved in different manners becoming more and more similar to the real world. Two different kinds of VR can be identified: non-immersive and immersive. The former is a computer-based environment that can simulate places in the real or imagined worlds; the latter takes the idea even further by giving the perception of being physically present in the non-physical world. While non-immersive VR can be based on a standard computer, immersive VR is still evolving as the needed devices are becoming more user friendly and economically accessible. In the past, there was a major difficulty about using equipment such as a helmet with goggles, while now new devices are being developed to make usability better for the user. VR, which is based on three basic principles: Immersion, Interaction, and User involvement with the environment and narrative, offers a very high potential in education by making learning more motivating and engaging. Up to now, the use of immersive-VR in educational games has been limited due to high prices of the devices and their limited usability. Now new tools like the commercial "Oculus Rift", make it possible to access immersive-VR in lots of educational situations. This paper reports a survey on the scientific literature on the advantages and potentials in the use of Immersive Virtual Reality in Education in the last two years (2013-14). It shows how VR in general, and immersive VR in particular, has been used mostly for adult training in special situations or for university students. It then focuses on the possible advantages and drawbacks of its use in education with reference to different classes of users like children and some kinds of cognitive disabilities (with particular reference to the Down syndrome). It concludes outlining strategies that could be carried out to verify these ideas.

Multimodal teaching, learning and training in virtual reality: a review and case study

“…In education and training this can be explained by lack of on-campus experiments [73,74] . Globally, previous meta-analyses (2 studies), systematic reviews (1 study) and reviews (2 studies) documented VR efficiency for learning [26,70,71,75,76] . But, according to Lanier et al…”

“…Usual VR advantages listed in the literature are embodying, acting, repeating [70] , and increasing motivation while learning compared to other media [26,71] . Yet, leaners' acceptance and learning instructions' creation are still restraining large adoption [65,72] .…”

“…For example, Öman and Hashemi suggested that technology may be used to increase students' communicative and collaborative skills instead of focusing on how to use the technology from a technical perspective [24] . VR is shown to offer self-regulated and multiple learning choices compared to other learning platforms which lead to high quality of experience and retention [25][26][27][28][29] .…”

Practitioners’ Attitudes and Perceptions Toward the Use of Augmented and Virtual Reality Technologies in the Education of Students With Disabilities

“…As these technologies become more available, user-friendly, and cost-effective, their uses in education are increasing (Akcayir & Akcayir, 2017; Bozgeyikli et al, 2018). Immersive technologies can provide a valuable learning experience for students to learn a variety of complex tasks in an interactive learning environment (Freina & Ott, 2015). These technologies could equip learners with student-centered, practice-oriented, and visual, simulated environments to increase students’ attention, memory recall, and engagement (Janssen et al, 2016).…”

Fully Immersive Virtual Reality in Logistics Modelling and Simulation Education

“…Fully immersive VR is completely filling the user's field of view with a head-mounted display. Although a huge amount of VR content comes from video games and the entertainment industry, VR offers the chance to many areas of education [3] from STEM, medicine, and humanities for various visualisations (big data, difficult structures, prototypes, human anatomy, digital heritage, etc.) [4,5,6,7] to practical training courses especially if a real system is very expensive or poses hazard/health risks or does not even exist (flight, driving, or maritime simulators, firefighting, factory operations, etc.)…”