Does Higher Education Need Virtual Reality? A Survey

Interest in virtual reality (VR) is growing steadily, and it is becoming clear that VR can be beneficial in many areas of teaching and learning. There are many studies that have been conducted, didactic models have also been adapted, and there is a wide range of applications, all focusing on VR in education. Besides, there are only a few studies which explore the attitudes, requirements and wishes of teachers and students. It is important to see what lecturers want and what their ideal requirements are. Do they really want to teach in VR? What value do they see in VR? What tools are they already using and how much experience and equipment is available at universities. To answer these questions, we designed a questionnaire encompassing 3 domains with 11 subdomains and a total of 116 questions to explore the requirements, acceptance, and experiences of VR in higher education. Overall, the results (N = 170) show that 50.0% of respondents consider VR important for themselves, but 82.1% believe that VR will be important for practical use in the classroom in the future. Further key findings will be presented and discussed in the paper, and raw data will be made available to the public. In summary, it can be said that the respondents definitely see the benefit and need for VR in higher education, although lecturers and students do not always agree on certain issues.