Educational virtual environments: A ten-year review of empirical research (1999-2009)

By Tassos Anastasios Mikropoulos, Antonis Natsis. Comput. Educ., 2011

1,053 citations recorded by the source corpus.

This study is a ten-year critical review of empirical research on the educational applications of Virtual Reality (VR). Results show that although the majority of the 53 reviewed articles refer to science and mathematics, researchers from social sciences also seem to appreciate the educational value of VR and incorporate their learning goals in Educational Virtual Environments (EVEs). Although VR supports multisensory interaction channels, visual representations predominate. Few are the studies that incorporate intuitive interactivity, indicating a research trend in this direction. Few are the settings that use immersive EVEs reporting positive results on users' attitudes and learning outcomes, indicating that there is a need for further research on the capabilities of such systems. Features of VR that contribute to learning such as first order experiences, natural semantics, size, transduction, reification, autonomy and presence are exploited according to the educational context and content. Presence seems to play an important role in learning and it is a subject needing further and intensive studies. Constructivism seems to be the theoretical model the majority of the EVEs are based on. The studies present real world, authentic tasks that enable context and content dependent knowledge construction. They also provide multiple representations of reality by representing the natural complexity of the world. Findings show that collaboration and social negotiation are not only limited to the participants of an EVE, but exist between participants and avatars, offering a new dimension to computer assisted learning. Little can yet be concluded regarding the retention of the knowledge acquired in EVEs. Longitudinal studies are necessary, and we believe that the main outcome of this study is the future research perspectives it brings to light.

Subfields: Education, Human-Computer Interaction

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/813e3682b724318568d44e53b2a50f20c79b204c

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Education

In Human-Computer Interaction

Citations in the corpus

Experimenting with electromagnetism using augmented reality: Impact on flow student experience and educational effectiveness (2014, background): “Therefore, an active area of research is the exploration of learning affordances offered by these emerging technologies in different knowledge areas (Dalgarno & Lee, 2010; Mikropoulos & Natsis, 2011).”
Enhancing Our Lives with Immersive Virtual Reality (2016, background): “(2011), Mikropoulos and Natsis (2011), Merchant et al.”
Serious games as new educational tools: how effective are they? A meta-analysis of recent studies (2013, background): “More recently, Mikropoulos and Natsis (2010) examined educational virtual environments (EVEs) and produced a review of empirical research into these applications undertaken over the previous 10 years.”
Immersive virtual reality increases liking but not learning with a science simulation and generative learning strategies promote learning in immersive virtual reality. (2020, background): “…and Rationale The increased availability of technologies for creating Immersive Virtual Reality (IVR) enable novel ways of engaging learners in education and training (Baceviciute et al., 2020; Bonde et al., 2014; Jensen & Konradsen, 2018; Mikropoulos & Natsis, 2011; Parong & Mayer, 2018).”
Authenticity in virtual reality for assessment and intervention in Autism: a conceptual review (2016, background): “…whether a particular form of media has the potential for supporting realistic actions and influencing future behaviours, i.e. can be useful as a basis for promoting memorable experiences (Sylaiou et al., 2013) and encouraging learning (e.g. Mikropoulos & Natsis, 2011; So & Brush, 2008).”
A systematic review of Virtual Reality in education (2017, background): “Mikropoulos & Natsis (2011) performed a similar review of the use of VR in education between 1999 and 2009.”