-01.png){kind=logo}
Augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) technology have the potential to transform the education sector, particularly vocational or technical education, by blending technology with pedagogy. Consider that a student, who is doing a degree in the UK, may be able to go on a tour of a factory located across the world.
Consider a class of 120 students wearing VR headsets and interacting with a process or a product simultaneously without the need for having the actual physical object. In yet another example, multinational conglomerates may be trained in using certain facilities or equipment in a different country without having to travel and disrupt their work schedules.
Learning comprises three main components that are: knowledge, skills and experience.
VR courses are low-cost innovations that allow students to have hands-on experience at a fraction of the costs and resources. VR Technology makes hands-on education feasible, time-efficient, and economically viable. It can be used to correct some of the inequalities in education between high- and low-income students, it removes physical boundaries and democratises access.
For example, Pioneer Expeditions, a Google initiative, equipped thousands of classrooms around the world with Expedition and VR headsets for one day. The tool allows students to stimulate field trips to over 100 different locations where, in real life, these trips are afforded only by students with higher socioeconomic status.
The VR system immerses learners in the digital environment and engages various sensing, thus, augmenting and assisting learning. Unlike the traditional student feedback model, VR sensors allow education providers to aggregate a significant amount of data that can be leveraged to improve the course content and determine where to invest further in creating content.
From a learning perspective, the technology will allow the students to gain a deeper understanding of subject matters, which provokes students’ curiosity and unlocks their creative problem-solving.
Market Landscape — Industry Size and Prospects
Goldman Sachs forecasted that VR and AR technologies will dominate the computing market, similar to the PC and smartphones. IDC, a market intelligence company, went further to state that VR/AR technologies are innovation accelerators. The market for AR and VR hardware is projected to be $120 billion and $10 billion by 2025, respectively.
The author reports that the projected CAGR of VR/AR is about 198%. In 2016, private funding to VR/AR start-ups totaled $1.8 billion, a 140% increase from the previous year. Crunchbase News reports that $1.9 billion was invested by venture capital firms in start-ups in 2021.
In June 2022, Insider Intelligence reported that Meta had captured 90% of the VR headset market. The VR market has three segments: PC-powered, smartphone-powered and standalone VR. Exhibit 1 shows that smartphones made the mobile-based segment dominate with over 50% market share.
VR technology is used in 10 different categories: games, education, healthcare, retail, design, cinematic, experiences, theme parks, sports and social.
Like other technologies, VR technology has limitations — for example, VR requires further development in technology, in terms of frame rate, display resolution, contrast and illumination. Response delay is another technology barrier to adoption. Statista reports that 46% of internet users listed price as the biggest technology adoption barrier — see Exhibit 2. VR technology requires empty spaces for physical movement to interact with the content.
Thus, sensors need to be installed to prevent users from running into objects. Technology has other limitations, such as users may suffer from fatigue, motion sickness and discomfort when using the headsets for a longer time. Along with a lack of awareness. The technology requires intense computing and graphics processing capabilities. VR satisfies social needs to the level that users withdraw physically from society.
Learning Augmentation
VR systems offer learners multiple immersive and times emotional experiences, which are almost impossible to replicate using traditional teaching and learning technologies. For example, learners can walk inside factories of BMW, Rivain or Tesla and interact with objects and avatars (staff).
This offers an immersive operations management experience that can be replicated in real life. Learners can interact with staff members, and avatars, inquire about their operations, compare products of different factories and discuss other aspects of product development (e.g., design) or operations aspects (e.g., supply chains, manufacturing systems, etc.).
This experience will not only allow students to find answers to questions but also see examine the context that led to these answers, such as economic and cultural forces.
A study conducted by Stanford’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab found that students who attended lectures in VR settings — the students’ perceptions of presence become convincingly real.
Usually, engineering hands-on learning in the physical world is expensive — it is one brief encounter. It lacks repetitions, while VR content can be watched several times using various settings that accommodate learner styles — for example, playing the video in slow motion or using zoom-in or zoom-out functions. These inherent advantages and functions allow learners to gain deeper insights with each viewing.
For instance, learners can view a car’s design, dismantle, and examine the components’ designs and materials. Adding simulation data to the design will allow students to learn more about the component’s internal and external forces and think of optimisation methods to improve the car’s overall performance. The learners can repeat the process several times, enabling continued learning, which is significantly lower in cost than the same experience in the physical world.
Looking at the example provided above — how much does it take to dismantle a car and put it back together? In a learning workshop, the process might take days or weeks and it involves the use of various machines or tools that distract students from the learning objectives of the exercise.
VR systems allow learners to perform the exercise quicker at reduced effort and costs. It allows learners to gain insights in a significantly faster time. This allows students to use time to refine their thoughts, question their findings and tap into their curiosity in order to develop their problem-solving skills.
Hence, VR enables exponential learning allowing both educators and learners to cover a large syllabus in a short period of time. Demand can be built by increasing awareness of the technology and exposing learners to demonstrations and entertaining experiences.
