Bibliometric Analysis of Virtual Reality in Science Education over the Three Decades (1993-2023)

Abstract

This study aims to conduct a bibliometric analysis of the use of virtual reality in science education over three decades (1993–2023). The method involved data from Google Scholar-indexed publications using Publish or Perish with keywords related to “virtual reality” and “education” over the past 3 decades. Nine hundred and eighty-six publications were obtained with a total of 131,130 citations with an average of 133 citations/paper and 4371 citations/year. The collected data were then screened to ensure its quality. Next, VOSviewer software was conducted to perform co-authorship and co-occurrence analysis. The results of the co-authorship analysis showed that there were 164 authors eligible to be visualized and divided into 88 clusters, indicating a high level of collaboration among authors in this field. Co-occurrence analysis shows that “virtual reality” has an occurrence of 696 in cluster 5 and “science education” is only 16 in cluster 2 with word networks formed only on the words “virtual reality,” “education,” and “field.” This study emphasizes the need for better VR in science education and more research on its impact on students’ science literacy. It outlines VR usage trends in scienceeducation, informing future studies. The findings particularly highlight the importance of investigating VR’s effectiveness in formal educational settings.