The mainstream and extension of contemporary virtual reality education research: Insights from a co-citation network analysis (2015–2020)

Previous studies have provided various reviews with either general or specific scopes to understand virtual reality (VR) technologies for learning and teaching. However, a review of the networking structure among VR-supported education research from a citation-based perspective has not as yet been provided. With the inclusion of a total of 49 articles accompanying 834 citations from the Web of Science, a co-citation network was used to examine the citation relationships of VR-supported research from 2015 to 2020. The result showed that a series of Makransky’s articles were identified as the most frequently referenced research. We also present a visualized network diagram for offering a holistic structural understanding of the field. In the network, the mainstream exploring the interaction between individuals’ cognition and affection in the context of learning by VR was identified. The result of the co-citation network further revealed several extensions of the research trends such as the issues of the instructional design of VR learning, virtual labs in STEM education, embodied cognition by tangible VR, and the pedagogical influences of VR on young learners. Overall, this study contributes a citation-based approach to revealing the intellectual structure of VR-supported education, providing a fresh understanding and evidence for the field.