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.
Key words: simulation, student, technology.