Analyzing two decades of immersive technology research in education: Trends, clusters, and future directions

This study aims to analyze the research outputs of immersive technology in the field of education for the past two decades. To this end, we retrieved 2665 articles that contained 75674 valid references from the Scopus database for the period between 2001-2021. Several structural and temporal metrics were used to find out the emerging topics proposed by the literature of immersive technology in the field of education. Results recorded 869 clusters entailing 2561 nodes and 3372 links. The major clusters identified in our results were related to virtual reality, augmented reality, and virtual worlds. We found that immersion research was grounded on a robust theoretical framework such as constructivism, experiential learning, and cognitive load theory. We found diversified venues of publication in which the immersion literature appeared in 741 peer-reviewed journals. Our results indicate that seven educational technology journals were the most highly co-cited journals where Computers and Education and British Journal of Educational Technology were the most influential journals in terms of quantity and quality of the published articles, recording the highest h-index. Tips and suggestions for future research projects were also highlighted.

Automated summary

This study analyzed the research outputs of immersive technology in education over the past two decades. 2665 articles and 75674 valid references from the Scopus database were used to identify emerging topics and major clusters related to virtual reality, augmented reality, and virtual worlds. The study revealed the strong theoretical foundation of constructivism, experiential learning, and cognitive load theory in immersion research. It also highlighted influential journals such as Computers and Education and British Journal of Educational Technology, providing tips and suggestions for future research projects.