Enhancing higher education art students’ learning experience through virtual reality: a comprehensive literature review of product design courses

ABSTRACT

Since the turn of the millennium, virtual reality (VR) has become a popular global research topic. Educators are eager to employ VR for interactive learning, potentially enhancing student engagement and efficiency. Researchers have conducted numerous trials, with students across disciplines achieving notable results, affirming VR's effectiveness, even in art and design education. The field of product design, in particular, requires high-dimensional interaction throughout the learning process, making it a promising application area for VR technology. This study takes art and design majors as the analysis object and aims to explore the development trend of VR technology in education related to product design courses. In addition, this study conducted a systematic review of relevant literature over the past five years to assess the current state of VR technology in arts education, the types of VR used in teaching, and the impact of the technology on the student population. The results reveal that, despite the growing interest in VR technology, there have been relatively few cases of educators applying this technology to product design education. Moreover, immersive VR technology in art and design classrooms is still in the new stage. Consequently, researchers have ample scope for further exploring and expanding this field.

KEYWORDS:

• Virtual reality
• product design
• art and design teaching
• higher education
• systematic review

Acknowledgement

The author is from Universiti Sains Malaysia and the funding and materials are supported by the university.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia for the Fundamental Research Grant Scheme with Project Code: FRGS/1/2021/SSI0/USM/02/10

Notes on contributors

Wang Jiawei

Mr. Wang Jiawei received a Master of Design from The University of New South Wales in 2022. He is now a Ph.D. candidate at the Centre of Instructional Technology and Multimedia, Universiti Sains Malaysia

Nur Azlina Mohamed Mokmin

Dr. Nur Azlina Mohamed Mokmin. Holds a Doctorate Degree (PhD) in Instructional System Development. Her work focuses on applying Artificial Intelligent, Virtual Reality, and Augmented Reality in education. Her current research is on the application of immersive technologies for medical and health studies. She is currently teaching at the Centre of Instructional Technology and Multimedia, Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM).

Ji Shaorong

Miss Ji Shaorong is a master student in School of Art, Universiti Sains Malaysia