With its capacity to support student-centered learning through digital transformation and shared experience, augmented reality (AR) has received increasing attention from both researchers and practitioners as an emerging technology to achieve innovative and sustainable education. Therefore, this study systematically reviewed the literature on the application of augmented reality in K–12 education settings between 2000 and 2020. After two stages of screening, 129 articles were selected, and the key research results were analyzed and integrated by adopting a coding scheme including basic information, instruction contexts, technical features, instructional design, and research results. The results revealed interesting findings regarding the augmented reality literature in terms of publication patterns, application fields, technological affordances, instructional designs, and methods. Furthermore, a meta-analysis was conducted to examine the effectiveness of augmented reality-based instruction, and the results showed a large overall effect size (g = 0.919) with three significant moderators. Finally, the practical significance of AR-based instruction and a future research agenda are discussed.

This study provides a comprehensive review of the application of virtual reality (VR) in social and emotional learning (SEL) for children and adolescents over the past decade (January 2013–May 2023), with a specific interest in the relations between their technological and instructional design features. A search in Web of Science resulted in 32 relevant articles that were then manually screened. Coding analysis was conducted from four perspectives: participant characteristics, research design, technological features, and instructional design. The analysis provides insights into the VR literature regarding publication trends, target populations, technological features, instructional scenarios, and tasks. To test the effectiveness of VR interventions for promoting SEL, a meta-analysis was also conducted, which revealed an overall medium effect size and significant moderating effects of SEL disorder type and instructional task. Finally, based on the research results, the practical implications of and future research directions for applying VR in SEL were discussed.

Augmented reality (AR) has been widely used in higher education because of its unique characteristics that combine virtuality and reality. This study systematically reviewed the literature on the application of AR in higher education between 2000 and 2023. A total of 237 articles were selected, and the key research findings were analyzed and synthesized based on the coding manual from five aspects: basic information, disciplines, technology features, instructional design, and research results. The results revealed interesting findings regarding AR literature in terms of publication trends and applied disciplines, technical features and affordances, instructional design, and learning outcomes and measurement methods. Furthermore, a meta-analysis was conducted on 60 experimental studies selected from the literature to examine the overall effectiveness of AR-based instructions. The results indicate that AR applications in higher education tend to have a large overall effect size (g = 0.896, 95% confidence interval = [0.685–1.107], p = 0.000), with two significant moderators: instructional function and learning outcomes. Additional sensitivity and publication bias analyses confirmed the robustness of the meta-analytic findings. Based on these results, four implications for educational practice and research investigating AR-supported higher education were proposed and discussed.

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced many college students in developing countries to engage in online learning for the first time, and the sudden transit has raised concerns regarding students’ competencies for, perception of, and attitude towards online learning. To address those concerns, this study measured three essential constructs of online learning (self-regulated learning, perceived presences, and learning motivation) based on a national survey in China (N = 12,826) and employed structural equation modeling to investigate their intertwined relationship. The study results reveal that (1) college students’ academic achievement cannot effectively predict their self-regulated learning in an online learning context; (2) self-regulation can be further differentiated into general and task-specific strategies with a varying impact on three types of presences; (3) online learning motivation is best predicted by cognitive presence, followed by social presence and teaching presence; and (4) the path of task-specific self-regulated learning → cognitive presence → online learning motivation generates the largest positive compound effect. Implications for online teaching and learning practice are also discussed through the stakeholder perspectives of students, teachers, and platform developers.

This study explored the relationship between technology acceptance and learning satisfaction in the context of blended learning, with a particular focus on the mediating effects of online behaviors, emotional experience, social belonging, and higher-order thinking. A total of 110 Chinese university students participated in this study and completed a questionnaire at the end of 11 weeks of blended learning. The results demonstrate that technology acceptance directly and indirectly relates to blended learning satisfaction. The mediation analysis further revealed two significant mediating pathways from technology acceptance to blended learning satisfaction: one through higher-order thinking, and the other through serial mediation of emotional experience, social belonging, and higher-order thinking. Moreover, there was no significant mediating effect of online learning behaviors on blended learning satisfaction. Based on these results, we have proposed practical implications for improving blended learning practice to promote learner satisfaction. These results contribute to our understanding of blended learning as an integrated construct under the triadic interplay of technical environment, learning behaviors, and individual perceptions.

The last decade has witnessed the rapid development of immersive virtual reality (IVR) and its application in various contexts. However, its application in supporting real-time virtual collaboration has been quite rare due to technical barriers and the lack of validated design principles. To address this research gap, this study designed and developed an IVR space to enable multiuser synchronous co-located collaboration to complete a fantasy game. An evaluation study (N = 95) was conducted to explore its useful design considerations and the influencing factors for collaboration experience in the game. The IVR space was enabled by the simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM)-based inside-out tracking technique and was informed by four essential design considerations for promoting effective collaboration in IVR, namely, the role script, learning task, collaboration mechanism, and communication design. The study results revealed that students in general were satisfied with their collaboration experience in IVR, with social presence and collaboration competency as significant predictors of collective efficacy and social experience. Based on both quantitative and qualitative results, this study proposes four validated principles for designing effective IVR spaces to support synchronous co-located collaboration.