Exploring Pedagogical Foundations of Existing Virtual Reality Educational Applications: A Content Analysis Study

New virtual reality (VR) applications for education appear frequently in the marketplace but rarely contain explicit pedagogies. The research objective of this study was to identify and categorize principles and practices of pedagogy that are evident but not articulated in selected VR applications for education. Analysis of public content for the VR applications showed most were experiential while others were categorized as discovery learning, constructivism, situated cognition, direct instruction, or unclassified approaches. Educators and VR designers could use explicit pedagogical frameworks to support faculty development, construct extended, and congruent curricular options that stimulate reflections, build insights, and insure innovative and measurable outcomes.