The potential of extended reality in Rural Education’s future – perspectives from rural educators

Wang, X., Young, G. W. and Iqbal, M. Z. (2023) The potential of extended reality in Rural Education’s future – perspectives from rural educators. Education and Information Technologies, (doi: 10.1007/s10639-023-12169-7) (Early Online Publication)

Abstract

Technology-enhanced education can potentially enhance teaching and learning outcomes for rural educators since they face limited educational resources and low job satisfaction. Recently, there has been a surge in extended reality (XR) as an immersive learning technology to improve teaching and learning in rural areas, but without focusing on rural educators’ perspectives. This study aims to bridge this gap by investigating rural educators’ interactions with XR educational applications and exhibiting their insights on using XR education to improve education quality in rural areas. After educators’ hands-on experiences in a pre-designed XR education workshop, qualitative data was collected from their discussions in focus groups. As a result, educators believed that XR could transform traditional educational practices and create opportunities for new patterns of rural education (e.g., public engagement with rurality and rural vocational education). Limitations include a lack of school infrastructure to apply XR and an absence of well-structured curriculum design to use XR in the classroom setting. We suggest that future studies explore the integration of effective XR practices into primary and elementary education in those areas with limited educational resources.

• Item Type: Articles
• Additional Information: Open Access funding provided by the IReL Consortium. This study is funded by Trinity College Dublin-China Scholarship Council Joint Scholarship. This publication has also emanated from research conducted with the financial support of the European Union as part of the Horizon Europe Framework Program (HORIZON) under grant agreement 101070109.
• Status: Early Online Publication
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Iqbal, Dr Zahid
• Authors: Wang, X., Young, G. W., and Iqbal, M. Z.
• College/School: College of Science and Engineering > School of Computing Science
• Journal Name: Education and Information Technologies
• Publisher: Springer
• ISSN: 1360-2357
• ISSN (Online): 1573-7608
• Published Online: 04 September 2023
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2023 The Authors
• First Published: First published in Education and Information Technologies 2023
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced under a Creative Commons License