Short description

In this paper, they performed a systematic review of the use of VR technologies in education and analyzed both the applications and the reported motivations based on 99 papers.

Results on the Applications Domains of VR :

• 35% were applied to health related domains (general medical topics, surgical education, physical education);
• 28% General Education;
• 27% ‘Other’ (systems designed purely for potential use in museums)
• 19% Engineering (aviation, architecture, robotics, as well as several other niche areas of engineering);
• 16% Science.

Results on educational institutions and areas of VR applications :

• 51% Higher Education ;
• 15% ‘Other’ ;
• 9% Secondary education ;
• 6% Private sector ;
• 6% Primary education ;
• 4% Easy Childhood education ;
• 3% Musuems ;
• 3% Unsepecified ;
• 1% Military ;
• 1% Theme Park ;
• 1% Multi-level education

Examples of VR applications:

Ancient history courses: Exploring the architectural brilliance of the Pantheon and any historical monument or structure without leaving the classroom. Goes the same with museums, you can virtually visit a museum with mini-games such as treasure-hunts and other amusements activities allowing to further explore the museums in a goal-oriented fashion.

Aircraft fire drills simulations for flight attendants: One of the first applications of VR is for pilot training by flight simulations, which is carried out virtually much the same way as piloting in reality without any possible danger for both the trainee pilot and any other person involved in the training process. In addition, the software have a collaborative potential, it is designed to be multi-user, allowing multiple flight attendants to attempt to control and direct the passengers simultaneously.

Medicine field:

• Cerebral palsy education: Chang et al. (2014) designed a system to teach users with cerebral palsy how to independently perform rehabilitation exercises with video tutorials with a VR system using the Kinect motion-sensing device to see if the person does it correctly. This system provides a guide and real-time feedbacks regarding the validity of their exercise-form based on the angles of their joints as detected by the Kinect.
• Anatomy education: the use of VR promotes deeper understanding of the anatomy contrary to simple memorization for traditional content delivery.
• Goes the same with Surgical education: the trainees have a computer-generated virtual model to generate the surgical operation, there is no patient who might suffer.

Wind energy education: Abichandani et al. (2014) designed a virtual wind farm where the trainees could modify the parameters of the wind farms and the wind turbines, resulting immediately changes to the appearance of the environment and the visualizations produced.

The motivations reported:

• Participate in lifelike simulations and explorations that would be unfeasible to undertake in reality.
• Allowing students to experience settings that would otherwise require excursion, internship, or sometimes might likely be unfeasible as well.
• Interacting while in an educational process is more effective than having a passive process of education, encouraging by that active engagement of the trainees.
• The importance of Active, Project, and Scenario-based learning for providing education into practical “real-world” skills. It is proven more valuable for students embarking in practical fields.
• Gamification: Applying game mechanics and game-like elements to a no-gaming situation has proven to be more effective by increasing student’s motivation, engagement and maximum of enjoyment of the learning experience.
• The potential to facilitate personalized learning experiences: lessons can be tailored to the needs of individual students: repeating the lesson as many times as needed, changing it according to the needs.

Elements of innovation:

• Participating in lifelike simulations that would be difficult to undertake in reality (cases of danger or that need excursion for example)
• Active scenario based learning contrary to traditional learning process, with the possibility to interact, live and enjoy the learning process
• Personalization of the learning process

Target groups

• Trainees and Trainers