Abstract:

Our society is increasingly digital, whether due to the technologies around us (eg, internet of things), whether by the new reality of the industry and services (eg, Industry 4.0). Modernization of higher education also implies adapting to the new digital reality, through the adaptation of teaching plans to the needs of business market and through new teaching methodologies. According to Martín-Gutiérrez et al. (2015) in recent years, educational institutions have sought to evolve by integrating ICT into teaching methodologies in order to enhance new teaching-learning methods. Recently, the emergence of COVID-19 has accelerated the process of adapting to new technologies and most higher education institutions have adopted virtual learning environments to help teaching. In this context, platforms such as Zoom or Google Classroom had a boom in higher education.

Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) can play an important role in the emergence of new teaching strategies. AR has enormous teaching potential (e.g. Martín-Gutiérrez et al., 2015; Akçayır & Akçayır, 2017), because it allows a combination of elements from the real world, with elements such as text, images, video or 3D animations (Martín-Gutiérrez et al., 2015). Virtual reality is an artificial simulation, computer generated with the recreation of a real environment or situation. According to Lee (2012) in VR, people are expected to experience a virtual environment generated by computer and in AR, the environment is real, but using information and images from computer systems. Researchers have been developing several projects on AR for classroom learning systems, in subjects such as chemistry, mathematics or biology (Lee, 2012).

This study aims to assess the level of maturity of studies on VR and AR in higher education, by analyzing the contributions evidenced in articles published in renowned journals and conferences.

We used a bibliometric analysis of the main works on VR and AR in higher education. The database used to search for academic papers was the Web of Science’s Core Collection. During the review of the literature, a set of keywords were identified that were used in the bibliometric analysis. The keywords used were: "AR" and "university education"; "VR"; and "university education "; "AR" and "higher education"; "VR"; and " higher education ". A total of 61 publications were identified using the Web of Science search engine.

Preliminary results indicate that a large part of the studies were published in 2018 and 2019 (45%), and 56% of researches are published in proceedings papers.

The international conferences with more research published on this topic are the International Conference on Education and New Learning Technologies; the International Conference on Virtual and Augmented Reality in Education; and the International Conference of Education Research and Innovation. Journals with more than one publication are EDMETIC and Computers & Education. The most used keywords are augmented reality; higher education; virtual reality; university students; education; learning; gamification; distance education; and mobile learning. 65% of the research are developed in the educational research area, highlighting other areas such as computer science, engineering, communication; social sciences and management.

Keywords:

Augmented reality, virtual reality, high education, bibliometrics analysis.