Research on the Influence of Virtual Reality on the Learning Effect of Technical Skills of Science and Engineering College Students: Meta-Analysis Based on 32 Empirical Studies

Virtual reality technology (VR) has been widely used in education and teaching, but the results of a large number of experimental studies on the impact of VR on students’ technical skill learning are not consistent. In this study, a meta-analysis method was used to conduct in-depth quantitative analysis of 32 experimental or quasi-experimental research literatures based on virtual reality in the past 20 years. The results showed that: (1) virtual reality technology has a moderately positive effect on the learning of technical skills of science and engineering college students ( SMD = 0.363 ); (2) the effect of VR on cognitive strategies ( SMD = 0.487 ) was significantly greater than that of mental skills ( SMD = 0.275 ) for technical skills under different measurement dimensions. (3) Different test periods, previous experience levels, and auxiliary methods have different degrees of positive influence on improving students’ technical skills, among which the 40-60 minutes experiment period ( SMD = 0.484 ) has the greatest influence on the improvement of technical skills. According to the research conclusions, we suggest to make an overall planning for the construction of VR enabling teaching application scenarios and create a human-machine collaborative interactive teaching model of “theory+VR simulation+feedback” based on flow theory.