Virtual Reality in Online Instruction

Online instruction has become increasingly common as an alternative to face-to-face instruction (Bishop et al., 2013; Maertens et al., 2016). One benefit with online instruction is that it is more easily accessible for students who are not able to fully access the more traditional face-to-face instruction on campus. After the COVID pandemic, online instruction has gained further ground (Zhu, X., Kerres Li, 2022). At the same time, we have seen a rapid increase in new educational technologies, including that of virtual reality (Ding, 2022; Al-Ansi, 2023; Zhang, 2022). Studies show that virtual reality can make the learning process more engaging and interactive (Jackson Ardiny, 2018; Roopa et al, 2021) and that it can increase reception levels and train collaborative skills (Isik-Ercan, 2010; Petersen et al, 2023). This paper raises the question of how the use of VR in online instruction affects learning experiences. While the participants in this study display a genuine enthusiasm for using VR in an online setting, results display a lack of knowledge in how to use VR to improve student learning. One area of investigation is concentration. Here, results are inconclusive as 50 % of the participants in G1 are unsure of whether VR improves concentration and 50 % of the participants in G2 claim that the use of VR improves their concentration level. Another area of investigation is understanding the topic. Here, the participants from G1 gave higher ratings than those who performed the experiment in G2, which implies that the impact was not as high as expected. In fact, the participants in G2 found that the VR equipment shifted focus from learning to other details in the visual medium. Another area is interactivity. Here, results indicate that VR technology has the didactic potential of engaging students and making them more interactive in the learning situation. The study concludes that while VR technology has the possibility of enhancing learning, a necessary prerequisite is that both students and teachers have skills and knowledge of how to use VR technology in a pedagogical setting along with few technical modifications to the device itself. Key words: Online learning, Virtual reality, Learning experiences