A meta-analysis of the effects of spherical video-based virtual reality on cognitive and non-cognitive learning outcomes

Recent years have seen an increase number of studies on spherical video-based virtual reality (SVVR) in education.However, the impact of SVVR on learning performance remains unclear and cannot be simply generalized from traditional VR-based education. The purpose of this study was to examine the overall effects of SVVR on cognitive and non-cognitive learning outcomes and to explore a set of moderating variables in student, technology, pedagogy, and methodology aspects. The meta-analysis examined 33 studies from 31 articles that compare SVVR to other instructional conditions. All analyzed articles were published between 2018 and 2021, and were sourced from ERIC, the Web of Science, Scopus, and Google scholar. This resulted in 27 independent effect sizes on cognitive outcomes and 23 independent effect sizes on non-cognitive outcomes. Overall, we found SVVR had a low-medium and a medium effect on cognitive and non-cognitive learning outcomes, respectively. For cognitive learning outcomes, the effect sizes were significantly moderated by scaffolding type and learning duration. For non-cognitive learning outcomes, the effect sizes were significantly moderated by interaction functionality, learning duration, learner’s stage, research setting, source of SVVR, and scaffolding type. A detailed discussion of the findings and implications for teaching and learning with SVVR were provided.