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Grant support

The authors are very thankful to the managing team of Elotrolado.net, because without their help this study would have been impossible to conduct. We are also grateful to Encuestafacil.com, which offered us their services free of charge so that we could create the questionnaire and use their servers to gather the data. Finally, we appreciate the feedback and support received from the Scientific and Ethical Committee of the Nebrija University and from Alfonso X el Sabio University.

Analysis of institutional authors

Sanchez-Cabrero, RobertoCorresponding AuthorArigita-Garcia, AAuthor

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June 15, 2021
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Online Explorative Study on the Learning Uses of Virtual Reality Among Early Adopters

Publicated to:Jove-Journal of Visualized Experiments. 2019 (153): 60188- - 2019-11-01 2019(153), DOI: 10.3791/60188

Authors: Sanchez-Cabrero, Roberto; Arigita-Garcia, Amaya; Barrientos-Fernandez, Amelia; Leon-Mejia, Ana C

Affiliations

‎ Alfonso X El Sabio Univ, Dept Social Sci & Appl Languages, Villanueva De La Canada, Spain - Author

Abstract

Virtual reality (VR) has shown great educational potential because it makes it possible to simulate any desired situation or event, thus playing an important role in addressing current educational challenges. Despite the unlimited learning possibilities that VR may offer, unless users are willing to apply virtual devices to education, the investment of time, money, and effort will be fruitless. It is therefore crucial to assess the educational interest of the first generation of VR users and to identify their current needs. To this end, in this study we designed an online questionnaire and applied it through the SaaS (Software as a service) of a private server. The sample consisted of 117 early VR adopters recruited via a main portal of communication and information technologies in Spain. In order to engage participants, we posted a thread in the main forum, which is dedicated to the advances and potential uses of VR. Once the responses were gathered, we analyzed the relationship between 12 variables (mean contrasts with Snedecor's F, and contingency analysis with chi-square and Sommer's d). The results showed that the current profile of a VR user is a male over 35 years old, with university studies, and who has purchased his viewer recently (<1 year). As for the learning and teaching applications that these users were interested in, only 13.7% of the participants in this study use VR for educational purposes, although 28.2% were interested, indicating that perhaps the lack of applications or learning experiences may be hampering the use of VR within education. Almost half of the early adopters surveyed would like to learn using VR technology and are somehow optimistic about the relationship between VR and education, particularly those who are younger.

Keywords

AdultBehaviorE-learningEarly adoptersEducationFemaleHumansIctIssue 153LearningLearning toolsMaleSoftwareSurveys and questionnairesTeachingVirtual reality

Quality index

Bibliometric impact. Analysis of the contribution and dissemination channel

The work has been published in the journal Jove-Journal of Visualized Experiments due to its progression and the good impact it has achieved in recent years, according to the agency Scopus (SJR), it has become a reference in its field. In the year of publication of the work, 2019, it was in position , thus managing to position itself as a Q2 (Segundo Cuartil), in the category Chemical Engineering (Miscellaneous). Notably, the journal is positioned en el Cuartil Q3 for the agency WoS (JCR) in the category Multidisciplinary Sciences.

From a relative perspective, and based on the normalized impact indicator calculated from the Field Citation Ratio (FCR) of the Dimensions source, it yields a value of: 1.35, which indicates that, compared to works in the same discipline and in the same year of publication, it ranks as a work cited above average. (source consulted: Dimensions Jul 2025)

Specifically, and according to different indexing agencies, this work has accumulated citations as of 2025-07-16, the following number of citations:

  • WoS: 13
  • Scopus: 10
  • Europe PMC: 1

Impact and social visibility

From the perspective of influence or social adoption, and based on metrics associated with mentions and interactions provided by agencies specializing in calculating the so-called "Alternative or Social Metrics," we can highlight as of 2025-07-16:

  • The use, from an academic perspective evidenced by the Altmetric agency indicator referring to aggregations made by the personal bibliographic manager Mendeley, gives us a total of: 33.
  • The use of this contribution in bookmarks, code forks, additions to favorite lists for recurrent reading, as well as general views, indicates that someone is using the publication as a basis for their current work. This may be a notable indicator of future more formal and academic citations. This claim is supported by the result of the "Capture" indicator, which yields a total of: 33 (PlumX).

With a more dissemination-oriented intent and targeting more general audiences, we can observe other more global scores such as:

  • The Total Score from Altmetric: 1.5.
  • The number of mentions on the social network X (formerly Twitter): 2 (Altmetric).

Leadership analysis of institutional authors

There is a significant leadership presence as some of the institution’s authors appear as the first or last signer, detailed as follows: First Author (SANCHEZ CABRERO, ROBERTO) .

the author responsible for correspondence tasks has been SANCHEZ CABRERO, ROBERTO.