A Systematic Review of Research on Immersive Technology-Enhanced Writing Education: The Current State and a Research Agenda

Abstract

Immersive technology has received extensive attention in both L1 and L2 writing education. Its unique capabilities to offer virtual experiences alongside real-world experiences can create authentic learning environments that support students' experiential learning and enable the observation of events beyond the confines of traditional classrooms. However, there has been a lack of systematic analysis of recent publications in this area. To address this gap and improve the research and practice of writing education, a systematic review was conducted to examine the literature on immersive technology in writing education (ITWE). In this review, 37 articles (30 SSCI-indexed papers from the Web of Science database and seven additional articles from a meticulous forward–backward scan of the references of these studies) were analyzed. The analysis focused on theoretical foundations, participants, types of adopted immersive technology, methods, and research findings. Our review shows that although most studies revealed positive outcomes, a significant number lacked a solid theoretical foundation to interpret the findings in many ITWE studies. Moreover, there is a pressing need for further research on ITWE in middle schools, especially within the realm of English as a foreign language courses. In addition, the review identified some potential negative effects of ITWE, which were often attributed to poorly designed instructional activities. It was observed that conventional research methods like questionnaire surveys and interviews, were commonly used in ITWE. However, the potential benefits of emerging areas like learning analytics and AI in education (e.g., logged actions, facial emotion detection, electroencephalogram (EEG) analysis were rarely used. The article is concluded with the current research evidence on emerging directions and opportunities for future trends in empowering writing education with immersive technology.