Chasing Metaverses: Reflecting on Existing Literature to Understand the Business Value of Metaverses

Metaverses refer to immersive virtual worlds in which people, places, and things of the physical world are represented by their digital representations. The wide adoption of metaverses is expected to widely disrupt the way we interact in the virtual world by elevating our online interactive experiences and bringing a plethora of implications for businesses. Following a structured literature review of related research published in the last decade, we shed light on our current understanding of metaverses and reflect on the potentially transformative value of metaverses for businesses in the near future. We draw on an established research framework to organize the insights of existing literature across different levels of analysis and activities’ purpose. Through this analysis, we reveal eight propositions on the changes brought by the use of metaverses and identify a number of open questions which could serve as future research avenues.publishedVersionPaid Open Acces

Adoption of Innovation in a Community College Environment: User Perceptions of Virtual Reality (VR) Technology among Students Studying Emergency Medical Service (EMS)

This research study examined the implementation of an extended reality (XR) lab on a community college campus to facilitate student and faculty access to immersive learning resources. The study, conducted during one skills day, involved 46 students and was designed to understand if integrating immersive VR into emergency medical technician (EMT) education could enhance learner confidence and motivation, develop problem-solving and analytical thinking skills, and thus connecting the classroom learning with real-world application. The majority of participants reported increased motivation and engagement, alongside improvements in learning outcomes like knowledge retention and skill development. Applying the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) model revealed performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, and facilitating conditions as key determinants of VR adoption in EMT education. While no significant overall performance enhancement was observed, VR training showed potential to boost motivation, confidence, and specific performance aspects. Furthermore, student perceptions towards VR in EMT education were largely positive, thereby suggesting its utility in immersive scenario training, skill acquisition in a risk-free environment, enhancing learner engagement, and real-world situational preparedness. VR demonstrated promise as a transformative tool in EMT education, necessitating further research to fully exploit its potential in diverse learning environments

Immersive Virtual Environments in Corporate Education and Training

The use of immersive virtual environments (IVE) in several areas has increased significantly in recent years, mainly due to lower costs, higher quality and increased availability of virtual reality (VR) tools and technology. Especially in formal education, numerous studies have shown positive learning outcomes of IVE. There is great potential to apply IVE solutions in training and corporate education. For those engaged in innovative, cost-effective and ergonomic new solutions for the field of corporate training and education, it is extremely valuable to understand the state of the art. However, so far, no study has consolidated this information. Thus, given the importance of the theme, this study seeks to organize and synthesize the results of studies published in this area. A total of 3516 studies were gathered and 12 selected for in-depth analysis and discussion, with the goal of providing a comprehensive review of technology, applications and trends