Reviewers of Educational Immersive and Extended Reality (XR) experiences: Who is creating these reviews and why?

TL;DR

This paper conducts a scoping review to identify who reviews educational XR experiences and why, highlighting the lack of a standardized review system and the need for clearer reviewer information to aid user decision-making.

Contribution

It provides a systematic analysis of existing literature on eduXR reviews, revealing reviewer characteristics and motivations, and underscores the need for improved review transparency.

Findings

16 papers analyzed for reviewer roles and motivations

Identified gaps in review system standardization

Highlighting the importance of reviewer transparency for users

Abstract

This paper presents a scoping review of literature to examine who is reviewing educational immersive or extended reality - eduXR experiences and why. EduXR experiences in augmented, virtual or mixed reality take many forms, from supporting manual training, engaging learners in conservation, to provide opportunities for social connection. For users of eduXR, reviews of an experience can provide information that helps them determine whether it will meet their learning needs or not. The source of the review, that is, who they are and why they have conducted the review, is critical in helping the user judge the reviews quality and relevance. At present, there is no settled review system in place for eduXR, though relevant frameworks exist for serious games review with relevance and overlap for some, but not all, eduXR experiences. While some authors have engaged in preparing a detailed review structure for eduXR, there remains a need for a clear and simple way for users of eduXR to know details about reviewers, e.g., who and why, to help make it easier for users to identify relevant reviews and gain useful insight about eduXR experiences. To help address this issue, we conducted a scoping review asking the question; Who is creating eduXR reviews, and why? We identified 16 papers that present an academic evaluation on the review process of eduXR reviews. The 16 papers were analysed, coding for who themes and why themes over two separate cycles, using thematic analysis. An analysis looked to examine what we know regarding who is providing the reviews, and why, to help us to understand what enables, inhibits and what is yet unknown about how the eduXR community goes about making informed choices regarding the eduXR experiences they engage with.