Introduction

In recent times, young learners have experienced an era marked by fast technological growth. Accordingly, children are exposed to various technological tools and electronic devices both in their everyday lives and in their school routines. Hence, there is a demand for innovative learning tools and practices (Kaimara et al., 2022).

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) are regarded as updated teaching tools and are used more frequently in educational settings. Some researchers claim that students utilizing ICTs may perform better and more creatively than those students who are engaged in traditional learning activities (Nawaz et al., 2022). Moreover, the earlier ICTs and new technologies are used in education, the more aware young learners may become of them, and thus, may be able to exploit them effectively and wisely in their later lives (Li, 2021). Preschool educators may find it useful to integrate ICT tools and methods for teaching and learning, and in order to prepare effective future citizens.

According to some researchers’ claims, Virtual Reality (VR) is a form of these innovative tools and practices that has flourished as an interesting, “feasible” teaching aid in the learning process (Brown et al., 2020; Maas & Hughes, 2020). Specifically, VR can be integrated with mobile phones, personal computers (PCs), special glasses, and other types of gear into the teaching process. Therefore, with the aid of these types of technological devices, students can virtually “travel” from the depths of the Earth’s oceans to the peaks of Mars, allowing them to witness places, animals, and cultures firsthand that were previously unreachable through traditional teaching methods. Consequently, immersive learning activities characterized by realism are created through VR equipment (Shin, 2017). VR, based on conducted studies, is believed to have brought about several new learning opportunities in school routines, converting the school classroom into a natural, real, and meaningful environment for children’s learning experiences. During these experiences, learners have the potential to develop a range of skills and interact efficiently and effectively (Huang et al., 2016). Thus, VR may arise as a promising technology, suitable for educational settings from preschool to the university (Tilhou et al., 2020).

Notwithstanding, the majority of VR implementations can be found in fields like training simulation such as fighting and surgery (Burke et al., 2017; Oberhauser et al., 2018) instead of school classrooms. Thus, there has been a limited amount of researchs investigating the usage of VR technology in domains that are integrated into the education field (Chavez & Bayona, 2018). The implementation of VR seems not to have been examined thoroughly and sufficiently, although it may bring about several benefits to learners (Rienties et al., 2016). No matter how immersive a technological tool such as VR may be to offer “full multi-sensory interaction”, not many educators have integrated it into their activities in school classrooms (Radianti et al., 2020). In addition to this, some researchers claim that teachers cannot use VR effectively unless they are trained in it (Lorusso et al., 2020).

Additionally, VR may not be widely implemented in school classrooms for other reasons. Based on the existing literature, excessive exposure to VR may affect children negatively because it may create misconceptions of reality and may not promote critical thinking about the VR scenes and information (Hussein & Nätterdal, 2015; Li, 2021). Furthermore, there are concerns that children may lose a sense of their own creativity as they grow accustomed to more and more VR technology. Finally, there are concerns that preschoolers might adopt a sedentary lifestyle or experience motion sickness, vision loss, and headaches because of excessive exposure to VR screens (Hussein & Nätterdal, 2015). Consequently, the issue of time exposure to VR technology and whether this should be limited and under the constant presence of a teacher has arisen (Freina & Ott, 2015).

Moreover, educators are likely to face obstacles while attempting to implement VR in school classrooms, including the following: the shortage of modern technological gear, educators’ lack of knowledge and experience with VR technology, inadequate hardware/software knowledge, usability for VR technology, and the high cost of VR equipment (Kavanagh et al., 2017). Although new technologies may help to create effective learning environments for students, they are also often quite expensive and may be difficult to afford within school settings. Yet, the VR technology that is proposed in this current paper is reasonably priced; thus, many schools could provide it to their educators and students. Most often, in academic settings, VR is found to be utilized more frequently in higher education rather than in K-12 settings (Luo et al., 2021) and even less often in preschool classrooms.

Therefore, in this paper, we explore the potential impact of VR technology on young learners and specifically on preschoolers. In that way, education stakeholders would be able to clarify whether it may be helpful to design and implement VR activities from an early age.

The rest of the paper is organized as follows: Section 2 provides the theoretical background for virtual reality in educational settings, and Section 3 outlines the methodology employed to implement the intervention. The results are presented in Section 4, with a detailed discussion following in Section. 5. Section 6 describes the limitations encountered and Section 7 highlights the conclusions of the study.

Theoretical Background

In this section, we study the background of VR technology and its implementation in educational settings, with an emphasis on preschool classrooms. Studying these topics together contributes to a better understanding of VR’s impact on young learners. Moreover, this may enrich the existing professional literature and in turn, contribute to the effective preparation of preschoolers for their future lives.

VR Definition

VR is a form of simulated reality that may facilitate educators and students in the learning process. Yet, there has not been a widely accepted definition for VR yet. (Luo et al., 2021). Moreover, VR often fails to be distinguished from Augmented Reality (AR) which “overlays digital objects or virtual information onto the real world” (Akçayır & Akçayır, 2017). Most of the time, while referring to VR, a set-up of hardware and software utilizing technology comes to mind (Makransky & Petersen, 2019). According to related literature, there are 3 types of VR emerging from the degree the user interacts with the virtual environment: (a) immersive VR, (b) semi-immersive VR, and (c) non-immersive VR (Lorusso et al., 2020). In the first type, either devices such as Head-Mounted Displays (HMDs) or special glasses are used. In the second type, desktop equipment or a TV screen is utilized to display the simulation (Merchant et al., 2014; Wu et al., 2020). In the third type, conventional computer equipment (screen, keyboard, mouse) is used (Robertson et al., 1993). Finally, the experience created by VR can evoke several senses like vision, hearing, and touching (Elmqaddem, 2019).

Development of VR in Educational Settings

VR is thought to enhance teaching and promote learners’ skills owing to its theoretical and practical framework. In detail, VR integrates disciplines of constructivist learning theory since it may help learners to obtain and construct knowledge with support from their teachers and peers, rather than being positioned as passive knowledge consumers. Therefore, during VR activities, students construct their knowledge based on their previous experiences facilitated by teachers (Rababah, 2021). Additionally, VR enables inquiry-based learning and could enhance children’s critical thinking of ideas, contributing to their cognitive development (Shin, 2017). In addition to this, based on the findings from other conducted studies, children seem to enhance their social skills through their participation in VR activities (Lorusso et al., 2020). VR could also improve teaching activities as it is used for integrating and scaffolding learning. Scaffolding focuses on what students cannot yet do by themselves but are able to do with the help of others, and aims to enable them to be able to accomplish this successfully alone (Van de Pol & Elbers, 2013). Moreover, with the technological growth characterizing our routine, scaffolding can be supported by computer tools (Belland, 2014). Such new technologies may support students’ learning by optimizing teaching practices and empowering the learning process through the use of multimedia gear (Shi et al., 2022). Thus, VR, by using technological tools and scaffolding, may contribute enhance traditional teaching methods through to the design of innovative school activities tailored to children’s needs.

During the last decade, VR has become increasingly popular due to its immersive traits and its ability to enrich the learning environment in school classrooms (Luo et al., 2021). Hence, many countries integrate VR technology into their educational settings to facilitate learning in various domains such as science, mathematics, and vocabulary development (Hu-Au & Lee, 2017; Villena-Taranilla et al., 2022). Notably, in European countries in general and in Greece specifically, there are official guidelines from the Ministry of Education for all kindergartens to integrate new technologies into the school curriculum. Teaching methods need to be developed and updated to put the students at the center of the learning process as active participants using modern technology. New technologies, such as VR and AR, among others may foster this (Rapti et al., 2023). Now, children can have easy access to technological tools and VR devices which seem to be appealing to them. This is especially true when the VR equipment is of low cost, such as in the case of this current study. Appropriate pricing allows schools to have easier access to this technology, making it possible to utilize iteffectively by both developed and developing countries.

According to Williams et al. (2018), VR technology has arisen in educational settings as a potential mainstream technology for a number of reasons:

  • It may empower educators’ teaching methods.

  • It may raise and keep students’ interests, thus evoking their curiosity.

  • It may wake up children’s imagination and contribute to the development of their creativity and other related skills.

  • It may form sensory-rich virtual learning environments, in which vision, sound-hearing, and touch can contribute to creating interesting learning experiences.

In these new learning experiences created by VR technology, there may be factors that need to be considered while designing and implementing activities in school classrooms in order to gain all the potential benefits for students: the age, the characteristics of students’ development, and the gender of participants. Empirical studies have indicated that in order to engage young learners in the learning process, effective school activities need to be tailored to their real needs and development (Bayar, 2014). Furthermore, the gender factor may influence students’ preference regarding new technologies such as VR. Technology preferences and differences between boys and girls are often attributed to gender-based stereotypes (Sullivan & Bers, 2013). Males seem to be more confident while dealing with computer equipment, due perhaps to their frequent exposure to video games (Sapounidis et al., 2019). Additionally, females are more likely than males to enrich their games with imagination through collaboration in small groups of peers, whilst males prefer to use more physical strength and work with larger teams (Volman et al., 2005).

VR and Preschool Education

Young learners need to develop a range of skills to succeed in life and in demanding workplaces as future citizens. Hence, educational settings should promote these skills and prepare students effectively for their well-being. What is more, it is vital to achieve this from an early age. Fortunately, educators can choose among a wide variety of tools and practices to select the most suitable ones for their students’ support in the learning process. One of these tools may be VR technology. Findings from emerging research indicates that, preschoolers can enhance many skills through VR activities. These skills include: motor, linguistic, mathematical, social, and scientific ones (Ren & Wu, 2019; Zhu et al., 2020; Pan et al., 2021). Young learners seem to experiment with VR technology and gear with curiosity, which generates a sense of enthusiasm (Lorusso et al., 2020). These activities also contribute to their cognitive development too (Li, 2021). Additionally, VR technology seems to enhance children’s social skills. Social learning is rooted in children’s family environments. When young learners enter preschool, they immediately enter a larger social group in which they are supported to develop their social competencies with peers and teachers. VR activities may facilitate children’s social experiences and motivate them to form positive behaviors rather than negative ones (Shoshani, 2023).

However, so far, few studies have explored young learners’ preferences between VR technology and traditional methods. Thus, it remains unclear what students prefer most and regard as appealing game-playing activities in preschool classrooms. Furthermore, there haven’t been enough studies investigating preschool educators’ perspectives on VR and its potential impact on their school reality. So, in order to contribute to the theory related to VR and its implementations, our study aims to fill the gaps in existing literature, by addressing the following Research Questions (RQ):

RQ1. What do preschoolers prefer most between VR activities and traditional ones?

RQ2. What are the educators’ perspectives on VR technology in preschool?

RQ3. Is gender a factor affecting preschoolers’ preference for VR technology?

Methodology

Participants

Children were randomly selected to participate in this activity enriched by VR technology. Thirteen educators from 12 areas of Northern Greece implemented the intervention. In addition to this, a total of 175 children from 12 public Greek kindergartens, including 83 girls and 92 boys, all 3 to 6 years of age, took part in the VR applications. The educators participated in a 3-hour training program regarding the utilization of VR in the school classroom, prior to the children’s participation.

Research Design and Procedure

The researchers designed two different learning activities for one group of participants. The same class of kindergarteners was examined during and after a traditional teaching activity and during and after one activity enriched by VR technology. All the children, with the help of their educators, first participated in a traditional teaching activity about the animals of the Antarctic and the dinosaurs. The same children then “traveled” to the Antarctic and “met” dinosaurs using VR headsets, smartphones, and VR videos, as shown in Fig. 1. To facilitate that, a VRbox (V2) which is a low-cost VR headset is utilized. This is a type of VR technology that can use a smartphone’s screen to place the user inside a 3D world. Thus, this is a reasonably-priced VR tool that can be an asset to help schools with very low financial budgets to have access to innovative VR experiences and related educational approaches.

Fig. 1
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VR activities with preschoolers utilizing VR technology

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When the activities were completed, the children were asked to indicate their preference between traditional activities and VR activities. Two questionnaires were employed to collect data; self-reported measures/questionnaires with one question for each item. First, the “This or That” questionnaire (Sim & Horton, 2012) was used, where the children were asked to choose between the two activities and indicate (a) their favorite one, (b) the activity they would like to do again, and (c) the one they found more enjoyable as a game.

Additionally, the “Smilyometer” (Read, 2008) was employed using a 5-point Likert scale, which is treated as interval scale (e.g., Sapounidis et al., 2019). Children were asked to indicate their agreement or disagreement to the following statements: (a) I liked the traditional activity, (b) I liked the VR activity, (c) I would like to do the traditional activity again, (d) I would like to do the VR activity again, (e) I thought the traditional activity gave me fun as a game, and (f) I thought the VR activity gave me fun as a game.

In addition, educators were asked to provide their perspectives regarding VR experience using a 7-point Likert scale questionnaire. Specifically, the questionnaire consisted of 8 Questions (Q):

Q1. Children did not find the VR activities boring.

Q2. Children demonstrated a higher attention span during VR activities compared to traditional activities.

Q3. VR activities motivated children, who are used to showing little interest in activities, to participate more.

Q4. I am interested in integrating more VR activities into my lessons.

Q5. I believe that VR activities of this kind could be utilized for educational purposes.

Q6. I believe that VR activities could foster cooperation among students.

Q7. The implementation of VR activities was easy to do in a school classroom.

Q8. VR activities can be utilized as forms of playing and facilitating learning in a school classroom.

Finally, to capture the educators’ perspectives on the usage of VR technology, semi-structured interviews were designed (Kallio et al., 2016), oriented by 3 axes: (a) preschoolers’ motivation and engagement in VR activities, and (b) VR technology prospects and difficulties as an educational tool in a real class.

Data Analysis

To conduct a statistical analysis of the data, the questionnaire responses were quantified. Specifically, regarding the “This or That” questionnaire, the response in favor of traditional activities was assigned a score of 1, while the response in favor of VR activities was assigned a score of 2.

Related to the “Smilyometer”, the scoring system used was as follows: (a) Strongly Disagree was assigned a score of 1, (b) Disagree was assigned a score of 2, (c) Neutral was assigned a score of 3, (d) Agree was assigned a score of 4, and (e) Strongly Agree was assigned a score of 5.

To strengthen the statistical analysis, bootstrapping methods were utilized, with 1000 samples. The bootstrapping approach assumes no underlying distribution of the data, as it treats even the non-normal data as normal, drawing random subsamples from the originally collected samples (Cheung et al., 2023). A paired-sample t-test was employed to compare the responses of students regarding traditional activities and VR activities. Additionally, an independent-sample t-test was utilized to analyze the data based on student gender. In general, multiple t-tests might result in increasing type I errors, however, in our case, we test two conditions at a time (boys/girls, or traditional teaching/VR teaching), so the type I error does not exceed 5% (Field, 2005).

Finally, related to the educators’ questionnaire, the scoring system used was as follows: (a) Strongly Disagree was assigned a score of 1, (b) Disagree was assigned a score of 2, (c) Somewhat Disagree was assigned a score of 3, (d) Neutral was assigned a score of 4, (e) Somewhat Agree was assigned a score of 5, (f) Agree was assigned a score of 6, and (g) Strongly Agree was assigned a score of 7.

Results

Students

The students’ preference for VR activities is indicated through (a) the results of the “This or That” questionnaire (shown in Table 1), and (b) the results of the “Smilyometer” questionnaire (shown in Table 2).

Table 1 Chi-square for “this or that”
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According to Table 1, there were statistically significant (p < 0.05) and strong (r > 0.7) associations between children’s responses and learning activity.

Table 2 “Smilyometer” results
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The reliability of Smilyometer questions for the traditional activity was found to be acceptable, with a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.73 and inter-item correlations of 0.4. Also, the reliability of Smilyometer questions for the VR activity was found to be acceptable, with a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.688 and inter-item correlations of 0.5. These alpha values are considered acceptable given the small number of items (Herman, 2015; Pallant, 2020).

To assess potential statistically significant differences between students’ preferences for the traditional activity and the VR activity, a paired-sample t-test was performed. The results, presented in Table 3, favored VR activities in each case.

Table 3 Paired-samples t-test (based on 1000 bootstrap samples)
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Regarding the analysis by gender of the students, Table 4 displays the means of the responses along with the corresponding standard deviations and standard error mean.

Table 4 Gender scores
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To assess any statistically significant differences between boys’ and girls’ preferences for the traditional activity and the VR activity, independent-sample t-test was performed. The results, are presented in Table 5.

Table 5 Independent samples t-test (based on 1000 bootstrap samples)
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Based on the results of the independent-samples t-test, statistically significant differences were observed in two questions. Figure 2 displays the mean scores for both girls and boys in these questions.

Fig. 2
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Statistically significant differences between girls and boys

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Educators

Table 6 presents the mean scores derived from the educators’ responses to the questionnaire administered to them.

Table 6 Educators’ scores
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The educators’ responses depicted a belief that VR activities can be utilized for educational purposes (Q5). Additionally. the children get engaged in VR activities without getting bored (Q1). However, the has been a low score regarding the question of whether such activities fostered students’ cooperation (Q6).

Figure 3 shows the mean values for the eight questions, accompanied by 95% confidence interval (CI) bars.

Fig. 3
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Mean values with 95% CI

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Regarding the semi-structured interviews, and preschoolers’ motivation and engagement, all the educators agree that the VR activity excited the children, who “asked, again and again, to put on the VR headset, to live the experience” while “waiting for their turn to put on the VR headset”. However, the educators noted that this posed challenges as the children had to endure long waiting time for their turns to participate. It was suggested by the educators that having had multiple VR headsets available would have been beneficial, allowing more children to engage in activities simultaneously.

In addition, “some children were afraid to wear the VR headset at first until they got used to them”, while some other children “reported fear due to instability in moving around the room”. This highlights the importance of being exposed to such technologies adequately enough before using them in an activity orientated by certain rules.

Regarding VR technology as a potentially effective educational tool, when the children were asked to describe what they saw during the VR activities, it was noted that “they readily used descriptive language to express their experiences. In contrast, during other activities, some children were observed to be more reserved and less likely to speak or provide detailed descriptions”. Therefore, although the VR activity was implemented on an individual basis, it effectively captured the children’s interest and made the lesson experiential. However, it was noted that developing cooperation among the children proved to be challenging within this activity.

Nevertheless, it is worth mentioning that the children expressed a strong desire for more opportunities to engage in VR experiences in the future. The preschoolers remembered details from their virtual “journeys” and wanted to share their experience with their peers even after a month had passed.

Lastly, aside from the preschoolers’ enthusiasm about VR technology, we also witnessed their educators’ enthusiasm as well: “I believe that virtual reality is a valuable tool that can be effectively utilized for teaching purposes”, “It was truly enjoyable and impressive to witness my students learning and having fun simultaneously”, “They actively engaged with one another, discussing their experiences and expressing their enthusiasm strongly”.

Discussion

This current paper aims to capture students’ and educators’ perspectives on VR technology in preschool. Regarding our first RQ and what preschoolers tend to prefer most between VR activities and traditional ones, all the preschoolers showed great interest in VR activities. They were extremely curious and wanted to explore the learning environment and the 3D world which was created by VR equipment. They were focused on the activity from the very beginning to the end of it. These findings emerge from both educators’ feedback and the students’ responses to our questionnaire after the VR intervention. It seems that when a teaching activity in the school curriculum is attractive, it raises and keeps students’ attention and interest throughout its implementation (Chen, 2016).

In addition to this, the preschoolers seemed to enjoy the VR activities very much due to their visual, auditory, and kinesthetic characteristics. In VR activities, children are motivated to use their hands, arms, and legs. This is something that preschoolers enjoy doing. On top of that, this VR trait contributes to children’s development of coordination and motor skills (Wang et al., 2022). Moreover, children were supported through the usage of VR instruments to improve their navigation and orientation ability (Lorusso et al., 2020). So, while having a VR learning activity tailored to preschoolers’ age and development, a range of skills promotion may be achieved too.

Related to our second RQ and the educators’ perspectives on VR technology implemented in preschool, all the educators agreed that this may be an effective tool to utilize in school classrooms with potential benefits for young learners. To start with, all the educators commented on VR activities as a means of creating a unique enhanced teaching experience for preschoolers. Young learners seem to live a learning experience in which knowledge is built by broadening their imagination and mind allowing them to access visually everything they wish as if they were there in real (Schmitz et al., 2020). In such a frame, students not only can learn innovatively but they can perform the tasks better and more holistically based on some researchers’ claims (Radianti et al., 2020).

In addition to this, preschoolers’ attention span and enjoyment emerging from VR activities were high throughout the intervention according to educators’ comments in their interviews. This may be attributed to the fact that VR applications in preschool classrooms assist children in learning various subjects while having fun (Zhai, 2021). This finding aligns with the results of our study, which demonstrated statistically significant differences in children’s preferences for VR activities compared to traditional ones. The experiences offered by VR technology contributed to the children’s strong preference for VR activities. Furthermore, educators noticed that children were able to remember easily and reflect upon concepts via VR technology. It seems that VR’s characteristic of having powerful visualization and fewer symbols to interpret while trying to understand something may facilitate young learners’ direct understanding of topics with less cognitive effort (Elmqaddem, 2019). Consequently, this could contribute to their better comprehension of many issues (Li, 2021).

In terms of our third RQ and whether gender has the potential to affect the VR impact on preschoolers, the findings from this study indicate that there may be a gender difference in the experience of VR activities. We found that during our VR intervention, girls showed greater interest than boys in the VR activities compared to traditional ones and gained more pleasure out of it. That may have happened because of the females being emotionally involved with the information in the VR environment (Mousas et al., 2018). Some research indicates that females may be more prone to become «embodied” with visualized information and understand it better than males (De Almeida Scheibler & Rodrigues, 2018). Moreover, the female participants seemed to enjoy and participate equally in all the VR scenarios in the implemented activities. This may be explained by the fact that female participants liked the topics of our VR activities. It seems that the context of a VR activity may affect the level of interest that each gender may show. For instance, military scenarios may appeal most to males (Grassini & Laumann, 2020).

Finally, regarding children’s social skills and their promotion through VR technology, according to existing literature, VR technology may create a range of emotional situations in which children can enhance their social skills. VR technology turns out to be able to represent authentic social scenarios and cases in which children act as if they are in their everyday lives (Georgescu et al., 2014). The more children become familiar with VR technology, the more they participate in groups to work and cooperate as team members (Luo et al., 2021). However, based on the educators’ perspectives in our intervention, limitations were identified in promoting student collaboration. Furthermore, our findings revealed two different cases: on the one hand, the children were so enthusiastic to experience the VR environment that they didn’t care to share this with their peers. On the other hand, they were so engaged in the VR activity that they showed great interest in discussing their ideas and feelings with their friends many days after the intervention. Thus, while there was enthusiasm and detailed discussions among the students about their individual experiences, there was a lack of a common group goal, teamwork, and collaborative activity. Hence, the educators observed that although the VR activities generated excitement and full engagement, they did not necessarily foster a sense of teamwork among the students. According to some researchers’ findings, VR might enable children to feel that they belong to a special learning group and environment to explore and discover knowledge meaningful to them. Yet, this often makes them want to share this experience and cooperate more with the visualized heroes rather than their peers (Bailey & Bailenson, 2017). Therefore, VR appears to be a technology potential to promote communication among students but needs to be further researched as far as the collaboration domain is concerned.

Limitations

Children were randomly selected to participate in this activity enriched by VR technology. However, one of the limitations of this study could be that all the data was collected from kindergartens located in Northern Greece to which we had easy access. Additionally, because of educators’ limited prior experience with VR technology, we decided to provide them with a 3-hour training program. During this program, they were able to familiarize themselves with the equipment and actively participate in various VR activities before implementing the intervention with the students. Yet, this may have affected the way they utilized VR technology and the way they expressed their perspectives on it. Additionally, it was the first time the children had been exposed to such activities, which may have led them to their enthusiastic preference for VR activities.

Conclusions

In this paper, a preschool education intervention was conducted involving 13 educators and 175 students. The study aimed to explore the preferences and perspectives of both teachers and learners by comparing traditional teaching methods with VR enhanced teaching. Statistical analysis, specifically t-tests, were employed to examine whether there were statistically significant differences between the two approaches, and the results indicated a significant preference for VR activities. Also, gender differences were observed to be statistically significant. Thus, it is recommended that further research investigating VR’s impact on preschoolers focusing on the gender factor be conducted. Moreover, according to the findings, educators expressed the belief that teaching may be enhanced by VR technology. The educators’ interviews highlighted the enthusiasm of children to experience VR learning and get engaged in it with much curiosity and interest. However, the interviews also revealed limited development of cooperation among students. Finally, this current paper suggests utilizing VR technology in preschool to enhance traditional teaching methods as long as implemented activities meet the young learners’ 21st -century needs.