Virtual reality technology in higher education: an umbrella review of systematic reviews and meta-analyses

Abstract

In this paper, the authors conducted an umbrella review on the impact of virtual reality technology on student learning performance. The purpose of this study was to synthesize data from previous reviews looking into the impact of virtual educational interventions on professional skills and / or knowledge in undergraduate students. The relevance of this research lies in the fact that the experimental studies of virtual learning in higher education published over the past several years are too numerous to be considered separately, and the review is more powerful evidence of a given intervention effectiveness. Upon the screening of literature, a total of 15 English-language reviews that were published in peer-reviewed scientific journals between 2014 and 2022 made up the final analysis corpus. Results show that learning based on virtual technologies can be effective in improving student academic achievement compared to the standard learning model. Practical significance of this work is that it informs academia that to maximize learning performance in higher education students through virtual learning, feedback from virtual educational systems should be moderate, virtualization should be highly immersive if possible, simulation modules should not be too long, and, most importantly, virtual technologies should be introduced into the educational process adequately to the goals and context of learning. Keywords: simulation, student, technology.