Effects of virtual reality on learning outcomes in K-6 education: A meta-analysis

Virtual reality (VR) has gained popularity in educational environments in recent years. Its presence and immersive characteristics enable new learning possibilities. Due to this growth, many studies have been conducted to assess the impact of VR on learning outcomes. The proliferation of experimental studies has created the need for meta-analyses that summarize the effect of VR in terms of learning gain. However, in the current literature there are few reviews focused on K-6 students and on analyzing the influence of some variables: the level of immersion, the length of the intervention, and the knowledge domain. The present meta-analysis aims to respond to these needs. After a pre-selection of 4658 references published between 2010 and 2021, 21 experimental studies were finally included in the meta-analysis. The results indicate that, on average, VR promotes greater student learning in comparison to control conditions (ES = 0.64). Moreover, this effect is even greater when immersive VR (ES = 1.11) is used compared to semi-immersive (ES = 0.19) and non-immersive systems (ES = 0.32). This effect does not depend on the educational level (kindergarten (ES = 0.59), 1–3 (ES = 0.69), 4–6 (ES = 0.70)), and most of the knowledge domains in which VR is used. Moreover, short interventions –less than 2 h– (ES = 0.72) are more effective than those lasting longer (ES = 0.49).