The rapid advance of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in recent times and the current pandemic caused by COVID-19 have profoundly transformed society and the economy in most of the world. The education sector has benefited from this ICT-driven revolution, which has provided and expanded multiple new tools and teaching methods that did not exist just a few decades ago. In light of this technological change, virtual laboratories (VLs) based on the use of virtual reality (VR) have emerged, which are increasingly used to facilitate the teaching–learning process in a wide range of training activities, both academic and professional types. The set of advantages offered by this type of VL, the main of which are listed in this article, has made its use increasingly common as support for engineering classes at universities. This paper presents a study involving 420 engineering students from Spanish and Portuguese universities and associated analyses on the assessment of different parameters in various VLs designed by the authors. The results obtained indicate that, in general, VR-based VLs are widely accepted and demanded by students, who likewise consider real laboratories (RLs) necessary in face-to-face teaching. In the current post-COVID-19 educational scenario, VLs and RLs will coexist within the new hybrid models that combine face-to-face and online teaching and learning.

The increasing dissemination of virtual reality learning environments (VRLEs) compels the elucidation of how these didactic tools can improve their effectiveness at the formative level. The motivation generated in students by a VRLE is revealed as a key factor in achieving meaningful learning, but such a motivation by itself alone does not guarantee the long-term retention of knowledge. To identify the necessary characteristics of a VRLE to achieve an appropriate level of meaningful learning, this paper compares a set of VRLEs created in previous years with a group of recently developed VRLEs, after being used by engineering students. A description of the design process of the both VRLEs groups is included in this paper. Most significantly, analysis of the response of a total of 103 students in a specific survey reveals how a step-by-step protocol system helped improve students' knowledge and retention after one year of using a VRLE. Thus, this study not only demonstrates the importance of using modern development engines when creating or updating a VRLE to achieve student motivation, but also justifies in many cases the use of a step-by-step protocol as a method to improve the long-term retention of knowledge.

Nowadays, there are many situations in which information and communications technology (ICT) is used as a vehicle to transmit knowledge. The fast evolution of technology in recent decades has favored the development of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) and with them the emergence of virtual laboratories (VLs) using VR or AR. Since such technologies can help students understand the atomic spatial distribution, crystallography is a discipline that has taken advantage of the use of VL in the teaching of crystal lattices, thus solving the usual educational problem of visualization in two- and three-dimensions. This paper presents a literature review that helps to identify the main features of VLs (based on VR or AR) that have been developed in the academic field to support the learning of crystallography concepts. Furthermore, this paper describes a VL developed by the authors where students can learn the main contents related to the 14 Bravais lattices (unit cells, directions, crystallographic planes, interstitial sites, etc.) by exploring the stands of a virtual museum. Such a VL uses non-immersive VR and has been designed based on the authors’ long-term research to achieve a high learning effectiveness educative platform.