Immersive Virtual Reality in Higher Science Education: A Systematic Review of Pedagogical Design, Science Engagement, and Digital Competence

Abstract

Immersive virtual reality (IVR) supports the teaching of abstract, spatial, and microscopic concepts in higher education, although previous research has focused primarily on devices, access, and technical constraints. This systematic review examined IVR from the perspective of pedagogical design, science engagement, and students’ digital competence. Following PRISMA 2020 guidelines, 2,177 Scopus-indexed articles were screened through identification, duplicate removal, title and abstract screening, and eligibility assessment, resulting in 39 articles for bibliometric and thematic analysis. The findings revealed that IVR research in higher education was dominated by life sciences, quasi-experimental designs, and small samples of approximately 30 participants, with head-mounted displays (HMD) to cover the user’s field of view and create the sensation of being inside a three-dimensional environment, used in 23 of the 39 studies. The most common pedagogical patterns were simulation-based learning and virtual laboratories. Among the four engagement dimensions, emotional engagement was most consistently enhanced by IVR. Digital competence was rarely defined or measured explicitly and was more often represented implicitly through learners’ interaction behaviors in VR environments, with explicit measurements largely limited to pre-service teacher education studies. These findings indicate that IVR effectiveness does not result automatically from device quality but is mediated by pedagogical design, content alignment, formative debriefing, and users’ digital readiness. Future research should adopt longitudinal designs, multimodal measurements of engagement and digital competence, and discipline-specific pedagogical frameworks to realize the transformative potential of IVR in higher science education.