Using Virtual Reality Interventions to Promote Social and Emotional Learning for Children and Adolescents: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Abstract

This study provides a comprehensive review of the application of virtual reality (VR) in social and emotional learning (SEL) for children and adolescents over the past decade (January 2013–May 2023), with a specific interest in the relations between their technological and instructional design features. A search in Web of Science resulted in 32 relevant articles that were then manually screened. Coding analysis was conducted from four perspectives: participant characteristics, research design, technological features, and instructional design. The analysis provides insights into the VR literature regarding publication trends, target populations, technological features, instructional scenarios, and tasks. To test the effectiveness of VR interventions for promoting SEL, a meta-analysis was also conducted, which revealed an overall medium effect size and significant moderating effects of SEL disorder type and instructional task. Finally, based on the research results, the practical implications of and future research directions for applying VR in SEL were discussed.