Assessment of Virtual Reality as a Didactic Resource in Higher Education

Abstract

Given that the university teachers with more experience in the use of virtual reality are those corresponding to the areas of Health Sciences and of Engineering and Architecture, this article analyzes the assessment these teachers make about virtual reality as a teaching resource in their respective disciplines. The study uses a questionnaire that assesses the technical aspects and future projection of virtual reality, its drawbacks and the perception of the different dimensions of the participants’ knowledge about virtual reality and its didactic employability. The questionnaire was answered by a sample of 423 university teachers of different genders, ages, academic level and teaching experience, whose teaching activity is developed in various Latin American universities in the area of Health Sciences or in the area of Engineering/Architecture. Their answers have been analyzed descriptively and Spearman’s r statistics and the Multifactor ANOVA test have been used to verify the existence of significant differences in their evaluations for the different variables considered, cross-referencing them with the field of knowledge. Within the main results, gaps by area, years of teaching experience and academic level in the participants’ evaluations have been identified and discussed.