Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality in Higher Engineering Education: A Systematic Literature Review

Abstract

Over the last few decades, many studies have explored the uses of virtual reality (VR) or augmented reality (AR) in different disciplines and examined their effects on learning. However, the effectiveness of the uses of VR and AR on students' learning is still inconclusive, and the uses and effects of VR or AR within the specific domain of higher engineering education have not been explored in extensive detail. The aim of this article is to systematically examine the overall effect of the uses of VR and AR in higher engineering education on different learning outcomes by meta-analyzing the results of 35 comparative studies from 24 high-quality journal papers published between 2013 and 2023. The results indicated that the uses of VR and AR in higher engineering education have a medium positive overall effect on cognitive outcomes (g = 0.60, p < 0.01), have a large positive overall effect on psychomotor outcomes (g = 1.67, p < 0.01), and have a small positive effect on affective outcomes (g = 0.30, p < 0.01). Furthermore, both the type of VR/AR technology and the engineering subdiscipline don't influence the effectiveness of VR/AR applications that were used. Such results provided empirical evidence for teachers and policymakers to adopt VR and AR in higher engineering education.