Extended reality technologies can offer many benefits for students and educators, such as increasing engagement, motivation, retention, collaboration, and accessibility. However, the use of XR in education also requires careful consideration of ethical and safety issues, such as privacy, security, potential bias or stereotypes, motion sickness, and cost. Because XR is still an emerging technology not yet widely adopted in education, many of these concerns are nascent issues requiring creative and innovative solutions.
Listed below are a few examples of applications of XR in educational settings.
Instructors can utilize XR to find or create virtual environments and scenarios that are difficult or impossible to access in real life, such as historical events, distant locations, or hazardous situations. This can help students visualize and experience the content they are learning in a more engaging and memorable way.
In a physical learning environment, instructors can use XR to overlay digital information or objects onto the physical world. This can help students access additional information, feedback, or guidance while interacting with the real world. For example, students can use AR to practice handwriting, identify stars, or explore human anatomy.
XR can facilitate collaboration and communication between teachers and students in distance learning and classroom-based teaching. It provides teachers the opportunity to make learning experiences social by allowing students to communicate verbally with each other and show body language through their avatars. It can also offer students a platform to practice their language and communication skills with native speakers or role-playing scenarios.
Instructors can offer students the opportunity to create in XR by encouraging them to create their own virtual worlds, objects, or stories. XR can also expose students to new ideas and perspectives that can spark their curiosity and imagination. For example, students can use VR to design buildings, create art, or write narratives.
As a research tool, XR can provide significant benefits; however, like teaching and learning applications, XR also presents new challenges to researchers, such as technical issues, ethical concerns, cost, and methodological integration. As XR becomes integrated into research processes, best practices and standards will continue to develop and emerge.
Listed below are some possibilities for XR as a research tool.
Researchers can use XR to create virtual environments and scenarios to conduct experiments, test hypotheses, or collect data in a controlled and safe way. For example, researchers can use VR to study human behavior, cognition, emotion, or perception in different scenarios, such as social interactions, stress situations, or phobia treatments.
XR technologies can allow researchers to monitor and interact with participants in real time, using verbal or non-verbal cues, both in remote and co-located settings. It can also allow participants to share their experiences, opinions, or feedback with researchers or other participants. For example, a researcher might conduct virtual interviews with participants using an avatar-to-avatar format in a VR world.
Researchers can also use XR to produce biofeedback data, allowing feedback to inform the efficacy of different interventions. For example, researchers could test the effect of XR interventions on stress by placing participants in a simulated environment. The biofeedback data from the user could then be measured and analyzed to evaluate the effects of the XR intervention on the users’ physiology and psychology. Researchers could also utilize XR as a medium to integrate both stimulus and feedback functions. For example, VR biofeedback can be used to create adaptive games or simulations that can adjust the level of difficulty or complexity based on the users’ heart rate variability or brain activity.
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