Virtual Reality and Education – The Steam Panorama

Abstract

Virtual Reality (VR) is increasingly being used as an education medium also enabled by advances in the consumer market, making the devices less expensive and the setup easier. The hardware is more accessible, and players can use Steam as the leading distribution platform for VR applications. Hence, more and more VR applications are being published, also for educational purposes. However, the VR educational games panorama is yet to be described due to the recent rise of this area, as well as users’ perceptions (both learners and educators) and issues specific to each learning domain. Towards this, we provide a first analysis of the Steam educational VR applications. We report an analysis of user reviews describing the positive and negative characteristics of VR experiences. Finally, we give an overview of popular educational VR experiences and what we can learn from reviewers about the design requirements for specific learning fields.