Abstract
Although the metaverse is a trending topic in several fields, it is not a new concept within the field of education. In this study, we followed the PRISMA framework and identified 37 articles since 2008 that researched the metaverse in education. We critically reviewed these articles, aiming to examine the evolution of the field’s conceptual understanding of the metaverse in education, identify its applications and effects, as well as synthesize the technical solutions and adoption challenges for implementing metaverse systems in schools. We found that the early empirical implementation of metaverse concepts in education mainly emphasized the characteristics of 3D virtual environments and avatars using the Second Life and OpenSim platforms. These traditional applications were found to be effective in supporting various teaching methods and enhancing students’ learning experiences and outcomes. In recent studies, more advanced technologies that pursue the fusion of physical and virtual environments (e.g. AI techniques, VR/AR devices, cloud platforms, wearable devices) have been incorporated into metaverse systems. However, the extent to which physical and virtual environments were fused in metaverse applications in education needs to be further clarified. We suggest that the conceptual clarity of the metaverse in education will keep evolving along with the technology development, and teacher preparedness for this new technical revolution needs more attention.
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Acknowledgements
This work was partially supported by the HKU Start-up Fund received by S.F. The authors would like to give special thanks to the anonymous reviewers for the helpful suggestions.
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Appendices
Appendix A
Coding results of reviewed articles (part 1).
Article ID | Authors & year | Country | Region | Group No | Definition (quotes from the reviewed articles) | Platform | Application |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Chris Collins (2008) | United States (US) | North America | 1 | “The Metaverse is the convergence of 1) virtually-enhanced physical reality and 2) physically persistent virtual space. It is a fusion of both, while allowing users to experience it as either”. | NA | NA |
2 | Davis et al., (2009) | US | North America | 1 | “Metaverses are immersive three-dimensional virtual worlds (VWs) in which people interact as avatars with each other and with software agents, using the metaphor of the real world but without its physical limitations”. | NA | Virtual team collaboration |
3 | Itoh et al., (2009) | US & Japan | Cross-region | 4 | “The ‘Metaverse’ is not only a cyberspace with a space simulator, but also a virtual world with social activities. There, users can interact with other users through so-called avatars, which are computer user’s representations of himself/herself or alteration of their egos”. | CG software MAYA Second life | Eye mechanism learning |
4 | Marmaridis & Griffith (2009) | Australia | Australia | 3 | “The Metaverse is a virtual world, described in Neal Stephenson’s (1992) science fiction novel Snow Crash, where humans, as avatars, interact with each other and software agents, in a three-dimensional space that uses the metaphor of the real world. The word Metaverse is a compound of the words “meta” and “universe” | Second life | Technical solution |
5 | Fernandez-Gallego et al. (2010) | Spain | South America | 3 | “To enrich and improve participant interactions, the usage of 3D teaching scenarios in virtual worlds (aka metaverses) seems to be a promising solution”. | “…a service-oriented architecture that facilitates the execution of learning units, based on the IMS Learning Design specification (IMS LD), in a metaverse platform like Second Life or OpenSim”. | Technical solution |
6 | Getchell et al., (2010) | United Kingdom (UK) | Europe | 4 | “As an emerging class of technologies, metaverses are a relatively new development, with some of the more mature examples such as There and Second Life being released within the last 5–6 years”. | Second Life | Archaeology education, game based learning (GBL) |
7 | Kanematsu et al., (2010) | US, Korea & Japan | Cross-region | 4 | “Metaverse is one of the social media characterized as a synchronous, 3D virtual world resembling reality”. “Metaverse can be defined as a virtual three dimensional space where the character called avatar is active instead of a person. As a commercial service of Metaverse, Second Life (of Linden Research Inc. in San Francisco, California, USA) is the most well known”. | Second Life | E-Learning, multilingual problem based learning |
8 | Nakahira et al., (2010) | Japan | Asia | 3 | “The metaverse is a virtual world described by Neal Stephenson in his novel Snow Crasy. Human active as avator, which is a computer user’s alter ego, on metaverse”. | Second Life | Problem based learning (PBL) |
9 | Jaffurs (2011) | US | North America | 4 | “I define the Metaverse as a virtual embodied world. Usually associated with gaming, this world allows players to access a website and experience a virtual three-dimensional space where they can interact with others”. | Second Life | Music education |
10 | Tamai et al., (2011) | Japan | Asia | 4 | “SecondLife (SL), the most popular metaverse service by Linden Lab, provides the environment for constructing online campuses, virtual museums, or place for academic conferences on the internet. Avatar, which is a user’s agent in the 3D space, can walk around the virtual space composed by electronically constructed objects, and interact with other avatars”. | Second Life | Situated learning, model of learning by teaching |
11 | Kanematsu et al., (2012) | Japan | Asia | 4 | “For this project, we utilized Metaverse as virtual space where the e-learning class activity was available…Metaverse is a three dimensional virtual world where avatars do everything on behalf of the participants….Therefore, Second Life as Metaverse was chosen as a virtual environment”. | Second Life | Engineering education, PBL |
12 | Vernaza et al. (2012) | Panama | South America | 3 | “Metaverse is a virtual space where people interact socially and economically using avatars without experiencing the real world constraints such as time and distance”. “For eduaction, metaverse is a space for learning activities generated from classcial e-learning content management system(LCMS). The idea of using the Metaverse (virtual worlds) as a space for the development of learning activities”. | OpenSim | E-Learning retaled to electronics |
13 | Yu et al. (2012) | US | North America | 1 | “Metaverses are immersive three-dimensional virtual worlds (VWs) in which people interact as avatars with each other and with software agents, using the metaphor of the real world but without its physical limitations”. “One of examples of a metaverse is Second Life” | NA | Virtual teams in healthcare |
14 | Tarouco et al., (2013) | Brazil | South America | 3 | “The VLL is hosted in the virtual world (or metaverse) OpenSim, which is based on free software derived from the proprietary tool Second Life, widespread in the context of virtual worlds”. | OpenSim, E2D, Voki, HotPotatoes, SketchUp | Mathmatics teachning and learning |
15 | Torres-Arias and Trefftz (2013) | Colombia | South America | 4 | “……immersive virtual environments including Second Life. In relation to the teaching and learning processes, these metaverses, as they are ca….” “Virtual worlds or metaverses are simulated spaces of social interaction on the web that aims to mimic the real world in their geographical, sociographic, economic and communication, but overcoming the limitations of the real physical world. These virtual worlds can simulate real-world laws or have their own rules. In virtual worlds inhabitants are represented by avatars”. | Second Life | Language learning |
16 | Kanematsu et al., (2014) | Japan | Asia | 4 | “The lecture was given to them through the virtual class in Metaverse (Second Life). Metaverse is the virtual 3-Dimensional World”. | Second Life | Blend education |
17 | Barry et al., (2015) | Japan | Asia | 4 | “Metaverse is a virtual three-dimensional world where avatars do everything on behalf of us”. “It is located on the virtual island owned by Nagaoka University of Technology (NUT) in Second Life, a well-known type of Metaverse”. | Second Life | PBL |
18 | Alvaro-Farfan et al., (2020) | Japan | Asia | 4 | “…the purpose of this article is to study the usage of virtual worlds (Metaverses) as evaluation tool”. “The virtual worlds present several projections towards interaction with users through direct contact, immersion when losing contact with reality and imagination for the construction of new worlds and the production of virtual realities”. | Moodle and OpenSim | Evaluational tool |
19 | Díaz et al., (2020) | Colombia | South America | 3 | “…design, development and implementation of a virtual or metaverse world in an educational environment under the Scrum methodology…” “Metaverse is the future virtual society where users consist in the presence of avatar, experiencing different contexts of ways of life. Virtual world for higher education is a particular case of metaverse. It enables interactive and immersive teaching–learning process underpinned by diverse ICTs”. “The virtual world market has been diversifying into augmented reality applications, mirror worlds, metaverses and Lifelogging platforms” | OpenSim | Technical solution to hybrid education |
20 | Suzuki et al. (2020) | Japan | Asia | 3 | “Metaverse is a virtual three-dimensional world where avatars on behalf users in real world”. | Second Life | Technical solution for sharing analytical instrument |
21 | Duan et al., (2021) | China | Asia | 1 | “The expected metaverse should be a realistic society with more direct and physical interactions, while the concepts of race, gender, and even physical disability would be weakened, which would be highly beneficial for society. Metaverse is a combination of “meta” (meaning beyond) and the stem “verse” from “universe”, denoting the next-generation Internet in which the users, as avatars, can interact with each other and software applications in a three dimensional (3D) virtual space….There has been approximately 30 years’ development behind the evolution of this term”. | Unity15, Blender, FISCO-BCOS | A macro-level metaverse architecture and a prototype of a university campus |
22 | Korea | Asia | 3 | “Metaverse is coming. The world started to experience an extraordinary mixedreality (MR) digital place inside of the physical world where people seamlessly get to gether and interact in millions of 3D virtual experiences”. | Unity, Microsoft HoloLens 2 | Aircraft maintaince education-collaborative learning | |
23 | Korea | Asia | 3 | “The Metaverse as a term is used to describe the concept of a future iteration of the internet, made up of persistent, shared, 3D virtual spaces linked into a perceived virtual universe”. | Unity, Microsoft HoloLens 2 | Training and education of aircraft maintenance | |
24 | Akour et al. (2022) | Cross-country Collaboration | Cross-region | 2 | “Accordingly, metaverse can be defined as a worldthat has virtually enhanced physical reality and space. It is an infusion of real and physical universe that allows users to imagine multiple and myriad digital mirrors of the real world, both existent and non-existent, for a variety of purposes”. | NA | Investigating students’ perceptions of a metaverse |
25 | Almarzouqi et al., (2022) | United Arab Emirates (UAE) | Asia | 2 | “Metaverse (MS) is a digital universe accessible through a virtual environment. It is established through the merging of virtually improved physical and digital reality”. “Through the interactivity characteristics, Metaverse ensures users’ virtual platform interactions. Interactivity ensures real-time, interoperable, and synchronous learning. The MS allows users to interact and have continuous connections with the virtual world without leaving the real world…. Metaverse also allows unlimited users to experience a real-time rendered 3D virtual world with an individual sense of presence through the corporeity feature”. | NA | NA |
26 | Chen et al., (2022a) | China | Asia | 4 | “…metaverse provided a realistic online platform giving learners a sense of social presence to build a high level of trust with collective accountability within teams, which offers a good environment for online group learning”. | NetDragon | Blended teaching model in metaverse |
27 | Chen et al., (2022b) | China | Asia | 3 | “However, metaverse would expand immersive virtual world and may be the future of the internet, making it more immersive, interactive and collaborative”. “Metaverse includes virtual reality which creates a simulated world and augmented reality that combines aspects of the digital and physical worlds as well as digital economy where users can create, buy, and sell good”. “The metaverse roadmap categorizes the metaverse into 4 types: AR, lifelogging, mirror world, and VR”. | NA | Medical education, situated learning |
28 | Dahan et al., (2022) | Korea | Asia | 1 | “Metaverse is a vast term that can contain every digital thing in the future”. “Metaverse is the most recent technology that is still not fully explored nor fully implemented yet”. | NA | NA |
29 | Guo & Gao (2022) | China | Asia | 4 | “The metaverse represents the latest stage of the development of visual immersion technology. Its essence is an online digital space parallel to the real world, which is becoming a practical field for the innovation and development of human society”. | NA | English teaching |
30 | Jovanović and Milosavljević (2022) | Serbia | Europe | 3 | “Moreover, new mediums that we can use for online learning such as metaverse or virtual worlds (VWs) platforms are emerging. We can define VWs as follows: “Simulated persistent space based on the interaction with a computer, inhabited by several users, who are represented by iconic images called avatars, who can communicate with each other in a synchronized way” | Unity game engine, MicroLesson | NA |
31 | Khansulivong et al., (2022) | Laos | Asia | 4 | “The Metaverse is a virtual simulation that participants interact themselves with avatars created for getting the experiences or creating the second life in a 3D environment without timing and space limitation by themselves”. “The Metaverse integrates these worlds as a network of interconnected experiences and applications, devices and products, tools and infrastructure, people using the internet for all activities such as entertainment, economy, and access to services”. “…the development of activities in the Metaverse or dreaming of the full entertainment or full learning course in the future. Besides that, The Metaverse can take people back to the past by simulating the places of history or antique which idea for comparison between present lesson and knowledge in the past”. | Meta Horizon | Agricultural experiment learning |
32 | Lee and Hwang (2022) | Korea | Asia | 4 | “Metaverse is virtual enhanced reality in which individuals congregate via avatars for human interaction and cultural exchanges.This research sheds new lights on the role of the metaverse (emerging technology as a fully realized digital world)”. | Frame VR, Cospaces Edu | Teacher trainning |
33 | Lee et al., (2022) | Korea | Asia | 4 | “A metaverse—a portmanteau of ‘meta’ and ‘universe’—is a three-dimensional virtual world that incorporates social and economic activity. In a metaverse, interaction is possible using a virtual avatar that acts as an agent for each user. The term metaverse first appeared in the 1992 novel “Snow Crash” by Neal Stephenson. A metaverse is a virtual world that enables socioeconomic activities analogous to those in the real world. In 2007, the non-profit technology organization Acceleration Studies Foundation (ASF) published the “Metaverse Roadmap: Pathways to the 3D Web”, which defines a metaverse as the convergence of a virtually enhanced physical reality with a physically sustainable virtual space. The ASF has defined two main characters for a metaverse: the spectrum of technologies and applications, from augmentation to simulation, and the spectrum of identity in the form of digital profiles, such as avatars representing users”. | Unity, photon, HTC Vive Pro Eye, Oculus Rift S | Aircraft maintaince education |
34 | Mustafa (2022) | Jordan | Asia | 2 | “The Metaverse is a post-reality universe, a perpetual multi-user environment th at combines physical reality and digital virtuality. It is based on the convergence of technologies that enable multisensory interactions with virtual environments, digital objects, and people, such as virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR). As a result, Metaverse is a web of social, networked immersive environments on persistent multi-user platforms. It allows for real-time, embodied user communication and dynamic interactions with digital artifacts. Its first incarnation was a web of virtual worlds between which avatars could teleport. …The modern Metaverse includes social, immersive VR platforms that are compatible with massive multiplayer online video games, open game worlds, and AR collaborative spaces”. | NA | NA |
35 | Park and Kim (2022) | Korea | Asia | 1 | “Previously, the metaverse only talked about the online virtual world, but today, in the postpandemic world, it has become a medium that connects the on/offline realms centering on augmented reality and virtual reality technology. Metaverse was being developed based on virtual reality before the COVID-19 pandemic, but attracted renewed attention once it struck to meet the limitations of external activities and individual needs. It is a rapidly expanding concept. Acceleration Studies Foundation (ASF), a non-profit technology research organization, published a metaverse road map in 2007 and presented four classification criteria for metaverse”. | NA | NA |
36 | Suh and Ahn (2022) | Korea | Asia | 2 | “The term ‘metaverse’ refers to an immersive digital environment where one can interact with virtual avatars. Specifically, the metaverse consists of a VW, a mirror world (MW), life logging (LL), and AR”. | NA | Students’ usage in daily life, not a particular application about education-Learner-Centered Constructivist Education |
37 | Talan and Kalinkara (2022) | UAE | Asia | 2 | “Although the Metaverse refers to an immersive 3D world, concepts regarding the nature and organization of the Metaverse have changed over time. According to the general trend, the Metaverse is a network of interconnected virtual worlds rather than a stronger version of a single virtual world (Dionisio et al., 2013). Therefore, to understand the Metaverse better, first, it is necessary to understand the concept of virtual worlds. Virtual worlds are environments that contain three-dimensional graphical worlds and are a kind of simulation of physical reality (Metcalf et al., 2011)”. | NA | NA |
Appendix B
Coding results of reviewed articles (part 2)
Article ID | Authors & year | Subject | Discipline | Cohort | Formal/Informal education | N | Effect | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Enrich learning experience | Increase learning engagement | Enhance learning outcomes | Facilitate the development of social skills | |||||||
1 | Chris Collins (2008) | – | – | Higher Ed | – | – | ||||
2 | Davis et al., (2009) | – | –– | – | – | – | ||||
3 | Itoh et al., (2009) | Biomedicine | STEM | Across age groups | Informal | 19 | √ | √ | √ | |
4 | Marmaridis & Griffith (20090 | - | – | – | Formal | – | ||||
5 | Fernández-Gallego et al., (2010) | – | – | – | Formal | – | ||||
6 | Getchell et al., (2010) | Archaeology | Non-STEM | Higher Ed | Formal | – | √ | √ | ||
7 | Kanematsu et al., (2010) | Multilingual discussion | Non-STEM | High School and Higher Ed | Informal | 9 | √ | |||
8 | Nakahira et al., (2010) | – | – | Higher Ed | Formal | – | ||||
9 | Jaffurs (2011) | Music | Non-STEM | High school | Formal | 3 | √ | |||
10 | Tamai et al., (2011) | Japanese language and culture | Non-STEM | Higher Ed | Informal | 6 | √ | |||
11 | Kanematsu et al., (2012) | Nuclear safety | STEM | Higher Ed | Formal | 3 | √ | √ | ||
12 | Vernaza et al. (2012) | Electronics | STEM | Higher Ed | Formal | – | ||||
13 | Yu et al. (2012) | – | – | – | – | – | ||||
14 | Tarouco et al., (2013) | Math | STEM | Higher Ed | Formal | – | ||||
15 | Torres–Arias and Trefftz( 2013) | English | Non-STEM | Higher Ed | Formal | 26 | √ | √ | ||
16 | Kanematsu et al., (2014) | Radioactivity and nuclear safety | STEM | Elementary school | Formal | 6 | √ | |||
17 | Barry et al., (2015) | Math | STEM | Higher Ed | Formal | 3 | √ | |||
18 | Alvaro–Farfan et al.,( 2020) | Math, language and literature, chemistry | STEM & non-STEM | Higher Ed | Formal | – | √ | |||
19 | Díaz et al. (2020) | Math | STEM | Higher Ed | Formal | – | ||||
20 | Suzuki et al. (2020) | Engineering | STEM | KOSEN | Formal | – | ||||
21 | Duan et al., (2021) | – | – | Higher Ed | – | – | ||||
22 | Aircraft maintaince | STEM | – | Formal | – | |||||
23 | Aircraft maintaince | STEM | Higher Ed | Formal | – | |||||
24 | Akour et al. (2022) | – | – | Higher Ed | – | 862 | ||||
25 | Almarzouqi et al.,( 2022) | – | – | Higher Ed | – | 1858 | ||||
26 | Chen et al., (2022a) | Medicine | STEM | Higher Ed | Formal | – | √ | √ | ||
27 | Chen et al.,( 2022b) | Medicine | STEM | Higher Ed | Formal | – | ||||
28 | Dahan et al., (2022) | – | – | Higher Ed | – | – | ||||
29 | Guo & Gao (2022) | English | Non-STEM | – | Formal | – | √ | |||
30 | Jovanović and Milosavljević (2022) | - | - | - | Formal | - | ||||
31 | Khansulivong et al.,( 2022) | Agriculture | STEM | Higher Ed | Formal | 29 | √ | |||
32 | Lee and Hwang (2022) | Teacher trainning | Non-STEM | Higher Ed | Formal | 51 | ||||
33 | Lee et al., (2022) | Aircraft maintenance | STEM | Higher Ed | Formal | 40 | √ | √ | √ | |
34 | Mustafa (2022) | – | – | Higher Ed | – | – | ||||
35 | Park and Kim (2022, | – | – | – | – | – | ||||
36 | Suh and Ahn (2022) | – | – | Elementary school | – | 336 | ||||
37 | Talan and Kalinkara (2022) | – | – | – | – | 34 | ||||
“N” denotes the number of participants in the corresponding study. KOSEN is the education stage between high school and university education in Japan
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Feng, S., Xu, X., Li, S. et al. Is metaverse a buzzword in education? Insights from a systematic review. Education Tech Research Dev (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-024-10398-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-024-10398-2