The possibilites of using virtual reality in education and its consequences

Abstract

Thesis: Over the past 30 years, there has been a significant increase in the adaptation of new technologies in the society (Kirkwood and Price, 2013). There are many areas where they find their application. One of the most important for the social impact is education.

In order to develop the education, there are steps taken to introduce new technologies to current teaching programs. One of such technologies is Virtual Reality (VR), which is becoming more popular and is increasingly used in many fields of education. In this paper, based on the articles from 2017 and 2018, we demonstrate the effects and consequences of using VR in education.

Discussed concepts: The main goal of this work is to show variety of VR applications in education and the consequences which it may cause.
Results and conclusions: The progress and implementation of new technologies seem to be unavoidable, while the problems presented in this paper show the need to control the upcoming changes. It seems that VR will become a more common educational tool due to its high motivation aspect and didactic potential. The conducted analysis showed that the most frequently considered groups are students in the fields of social sciences. It is worth mentioning that the disadvantages, such as high costs or the questionable effects presents VR as not such a perfect tool. Conclusions from this work should be considered as the new directions of the future research.
Cognitive originality/value of the approach: The presented paper is enriched with a qualitative analysis of selected articles related to the use of VR in education. We look at recent achievements in this field considering variety of applications and also the selected research groups. We consider not only the frequently mentioned benefits but also the negative aspects of implemented changes.