MIPRO 2022, May 23 - 27, 2022, Opatija, Croatia

Research on VR/AR integration in education

L. Abazi-Bexheti*, A. Kadriu * and M. Apostolova*

* South East European University/Faculty of Contemporary Sciences and Technologies, Tetovo, Macedonia
[email protected], [email protected], [email protected]

Abstract - Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality In addition to this, Augmented Reality presents
(AR) are taking off in almost every part of our living. Lately enhanced perception of the user's interaction with the real
VR/AR technologies are increasingly present in education as world by augmenting the real world with additional three-
well. Virtual experiences offer a great opportunity to involve dimensional objects that look as if they live in the same
and motivate students to learn through experience. environment as the real world. There are many research
Accordingly, the data and the research topics and papers that go beyond this definition of AR, still the most
publications exploring VR/AR implementation in the field of common properties of an AR system remain the
education are also evolving rapidly. To investigate the following three [11]:
research papers and trends, in this study we used the
metadata from IEEE database for the research publications x Blend real and virtual, in a real environment
in this field starting from 1990 till 2021. The study presents x Real-time interactive
our major findings regarding the research on application of x Register real and virtual objects with each other
virtual and augmentative reality technologies in education.
It includes several quantitative as well as qualitative results
from the analysis of the data gathered from over 700 In the meantime, from the release of the first headsets
publications. The research showed that the main increase in in 2013, the VR/AR technologies are going through a
the research publications that study the use of AR/VR in road of rapid innovation. Each new model of the headset
education is in the last decade which corresponds with the that was released in the upcoming years till today, has a
release of the first headsets. Also, AR research papers are better immersion and a lower price, compared with the
entering the scene later but show a more continuous trend devices from the earlier years. This is a great opportunity
till the present time. In addition to this, in terms of authors for the integration of VR in education and make VR a
of the papers and their countries, it was found that the more
practical instrument for use in classrooms in different
developed countries lead the game with a larger number of
authors while the non-developed countries remain with no
curricula [6],[7],[10].
authors of AR/VR publications. VR technologies are a new model of remote education
media technology as well. These technologies have the
Keywords – AR; education; VR; virtual technologies; power to extend learning experience to new places which
are distant from the classroom. VR can overcome the
I. INTRODUCTION current shortages of online learning practices and bring
Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) is students from different distant places into an immersive
becoming increasingly present and lately we are world where they can communicate and interact together.
witnessing substantial uptake in consumer space as well An illustration is the model of multi-user virtual
as in different professional sectors. With the continuous campuses based on VR potential to support students and
development of this technology, its usability in education staff to meet, learn and work together [5].
has increased as well [9],[13]. Their main advantage is As a result of their benefits and applications in
that they help in enhancement of students’ skills through different scenarios in education, VR and AR are subject
realistic practice and soon their extensive application will of many research papers that study the latest
arise in almost all the topics taught. developments, the pedagogical applications, experiences,
Virtual Reality initially was defined as digital and challenges from the institutions that are using them
representation of a 3D object and/or environment. [3],[8],[12].
However, the advancement of the VR technologies, However, applying new technologies to enhance
especially the modern VR head-mounted displays teaching and to have more engaged students is a complex
(HMDs) brought a radical uptake in terms of process, especially when the technology is changing so
visualization and interactions and gave the users a very rapidly and there isn’t any solid pedagogy associated with
high level of immersion. Immersion is the key word in it. In addition to this, it’s the lack of funds in many
the VR world and its’ usually used to describe the educational institutions which also impacts the delay of
participation of the user in the VR world and integrating new technologies such as AR and VR. Higher
disconnection of his awareness from the real world. In education institutions are in advance as they usually gain
other words, it is the perception of being physically support from funded research environments, which
present in a non-physical world - a virtual world created allows them to systematically practice, do the trial and
with images, sounds and other stimuli [4]. errors prior to the implementation of technologies in the
education process. The primary and secondary schools,

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 on the other side, lack behind in using these technologies III. DISTRIBUTION OF VR/AR PUBLICATIONS
although there are many VR/AR innovative solutions (1990-2021)
provided by various educational technology companies
As part of the research, we conducted different
for their students’ age including both curricular contents
investigations on VR and AR use in education. The first
and entertainment.
issue that was considered was timing – when did virtual
technologies start to be used in education and is there any
II. EXTRACTING DATA (DATASET) difference in terms of VR use in education and AR use in
In order to extract more knowledge on the topic, we education.
followed the process and experience that we had from Fig.1 presents the distribution of the research papers
previous work in gathering, analyzing relevant metadata that study the use of virtual technologies, VR and AR in
on research publications and further on identifying the education during the period of the last three decades
trends or other elements of interest [1],[2]. (1990-2021).
For the purposes of this research, we used the IEEE The dataset of research papers that included ‘virtual
digital library. The data that can be extracted from this technologies’ and ‘education’ in their abstracts included
database for each research publication in IEEE includes: 261 research publications. As it can be seen the increase
x Document Title; of the research publications in this area starts around 2010,
x Authors; which corresponds with the time when the first headsets
x Author Affiliations; were released.
x Publication Title; The second dataset was generated with papers that
x Publication Year; included ‘virtual reality’ and ‘education’ in their titles.
x Keywords; The number of papers filtered was 465. However, as
x Abstract; shown in Fig.1, a very similar curve was gained. Again,
x and many other categories. the last decade is making the difference with the
mainstream of overall publications where within five
By conducting a search in abstracts, of all research years the number of publications goes from 5 to 96
publications in IEEE from 1990 to 2021 we gained three research papers per year. This shows that as VR is
datasets. The search in abstracts included the following becoming more matured as a technology, it is making
criteria: (1)Virtual technologies and Education; (2)Virtual significant inroads into the field of education with many
Reality (VR) and Education; (3) Augmented Reality (AR) researchers contributing to an increasing number of
and Education. We further analyzed the data in these studies and experiences.
datasets to investigate the VR/AR trends in terms of
research publications.
.

Fig.1 Distribution of research papers that study integration of

Virtual Technologies / Virtual Reality / Augmented Reality in Education

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 The third dataset was generated from papers that TABLE II. TOP 15 COUNTRIES IN EUROPE BASED ON AUTHORS IN
included ‘augmented reality’ and ‘education’ in their THE FIELD
abstracts. The total number of research papers in this
Number of
dataset was 338. As shown in Fig.1, in the period 1990- nr. Country
authors
2010, there is almost no research in this area.
1 Germany 68
However, the last decade shows a steep curve 2 Portugal 57
representing an increased number of published research
papers. Another important moment which can be noticed 3 UK 48
in the papers that study the use of AR in education is that 4 Ireland 47
regardless that they have more recent application history
in education, their increasing trend continues till the last 5 Spain 42
year 2021 compared with VR which have significant 6 Greece 37
decline in the last year.
7 Italy 31
IV. COUNTRIES THAT ARE LEADING IN THE FIELD 8 Croatia 24
As part of our research, in addition to the timing of the 9 Bulgaria 20
publications we explored their geographical distribution,
more precisely we identified the countries who are leading 10 France 17
in terms of authors of publications about VR application 11 Romania 17
in education. Initially we merged all three datasets. Next,
12 Finland 16
we removed the duplicates and gained a new dataset with
unique research papers in application of VR/AR in 13 Slovakia 13
education.
14 Slovenia 9
In the IEEE metadata, there is no separate field for the
15 Netherlands 6
country. Hence, the country name was extracted from the
field ‘Author Affiliations’ where in most of the papers the
country was included. In Table I are presented the top 15
countries with the largest number of authors in the field. According to the latest results from Statista on VR/AR
technology, China has invested 5.8 billion USD, USA 5.1
In global perspective the leading countries in VR/AR billion USD followed by Western Europe with 3.3 billion
authors are China and USA covering a quarter of overall USD [14].
number of authors in the field. The result is expected as
these countries have been investing heavily into this The results show that the investment in virtual
industry. technologies and their application in consumer and
professional sectors has impacted its overall practicality in
TABLE I. TOP 15 COUNTRIES IN EUROPE BASED ON AUTHORS education as well.
IN THE FIELD
By focusing on European countries (Table II), another
nr. Country Number of problem arises where less developed countries are still
authors without authors that study the use of AR/VR in
1 China 285 education. This could contribute to further
marginalization of the non-developed countries in terms
2 USA 200
of education as well.
3 India 102

4 Indonesia 94 V. KEYWORD ANALYSIS

5 Malaysia 81 To analyze as many elements as possible from the
dataset records, in this part we analyzed keyword
6 Japan 74 frequency for research publications. The idea was to
7 Germany 68 explore the topics and challenges where researchers focus
most when integrating VR in education.
8 Taiwan 66
We applied it in two largest datasets: VR in education
9 Portugal 57 (2) and AR in education (3). Each keyword is associated
10 Canada 54 with a frequency value of its appearance in research
papers’ keyword list.
11 Australia 48
In Table III is presented the keyword frequency of the
12 UK 48
research publications from the dataset (2) - VR in
13 Ireland 47 education. As it can be seen, apart from the keywords of
the search Virtual reality and education, in the following
14 Korea 43
positions are words: learning, technology, students,
15 Spain 42 training, and similar.

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 embracing these technologies as they provide to the
TABLE III. KEYWORD FREQUENCY IN PUBLICATIONS INCLUDING
WORDS VR AND EDUCATION IN THEIR ABSTRACTS (1990-2021) students’ memorable and immersive learning
experiences that otherwise wouldn’t be possible.
Keyword Uses - Percentage
In Table IV is presented the keyword frequency of the
vr 1.6% research publications from the dataset (3) - AR and
virtual 1.6% education. As it can be seen, there are many similar
reality 1.2%
words with Table III.
education 1.1%
virtual reality 1.0% This shows that although augmentative technologies
learning 0.8% are newer technology compared with virtual ones, still
technology 0.6%
they have been studied in many educational research
students 0.5%
(vr) 0.5%
papers from different fields as well. The word ‘virtual’ is
reality (vr) 0.5% with high frequency showing that VR and AR are usually
virtual reality (vr) 0.5% considered in parallel in the research papers.
training 0.5%
paper 0.4%
Also, with a lower frequency we can notice words
system 0.4% such as ‘design’, ‘mobile’, ‘environment’ and similar,
teaching 0.4% which show that AR applications in education are being
research 0.3% explored in finding the ways in which they will enhance
user 0.3% the process of knowledge acquisition with new devices.
experience 0.3%
environment 0.3%
application 0.3% TABLE IV. KEYWORD FREQUENCY IN PUBLICATIONS INCLUDING
technologies 0.3% WORDS AR AND EDUCATION IN THEIR ABSTRACTS(1990-2021)
study 0.3%
applications 0.3% Keyword Uses - Percentage
based 0.3%
immersive 0.3% ar 1.4%
design 0.3% reality 1.1%
results 0.3% learning 0.9%
development 0.3% augmented 0.9%
users 0.2% education 0.9%
educational 0.2% augmented reality 0.8%
3d 0.2% students 0.6%
provide 0.2% technology 0.6%
interaction 0.2% (ar) 0.5%
real 0.2% reality (ar) 0.5%
augmented 0.2% virtual 0.5%
field 0.2% augmented reality (ar) 0.5%
process 0.2% application 0.4%
systems 0.2% paper 0.4%
model 0.2% research 0.3%
developed 0.2% applications 0.3%
knowledge 0.2% study 0.3%
game 0.2% information 0.3%
medical 0.2% educational 0.3%
data 0.2% user 0.3%
interactive 0.2% system 0.3%
world 0.2% technologies 0.3%
ar 0.2% real 0.2%
simulation 0.2% teaching 0.2%
computer 0.2% environment 0.2%
environments 0.2% mobile 0.2%
based 0.2%
experience 0.2%
These results show that there is a strong intersection results 0.2%
between all of them and the main challenge in vr 0.2%
3d 0.2%
establishing VR/AR in education is the successful design 0.2%
integration of all of them. development 0.2%
On the other side, although with a lower word process 0.2%
content 0.2%
frequency there is a wide range of keywords: game, training 0.2%
medical, devices, simulation, and many others. They users 0.2%
represent all the topics where researchers are exploring world 0.2%
VR as a tool to enhance teaching and learning. developed 0.2%
objects 0.2%
So, even though the field of education adapts
gradually to change and with a more measured pace than
other fields, the trends show that education is slowly

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of these technologies has a limitation in terms of research
papers and studies, as a research study discussing the
VR/AR experience in education that is older than several
years has little connection with the up-to-date state of the
technology. Therefore, the focus of this study was to
basically analyze the publications data and primarily gain
information on the trends, authors, and countries that are
leading in the field.

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