This study aimed to understanding whether the using of gaming strategies in VR is beneficial for the learning of a second/foreign language. Additionally, it was intended to identify what was evaluated, the main technologies, target audience, which languages were covered, and identify current research limitations. Subsequently, a research agenda is proposed. Findings are discussed below.
4.1. Findings
Most of the articles had a positive answer to the main question, as revealed in
Figure 2. Each study made its way of research to understand whether virtual technology positively impacted learning. For example, Castañeda, Guerra and Ferro [
35] and Barreira et al. [
36] had a positive result because the virtual reality technology presented better results in the obtained learning progress than other examined method. This positive result corroborates Solak and Erdem [
30] analysis, namely their research papers published between 1995 and 2015, where it was found to enhanced foreign language learning when VR is used properly. It also corroborates the systematic review of records between 2015 and 2018, made by Parmaxi [
31]. The author concluded that VR provides a wide range of significant didactic opportunities for helping language learning.
Some studies are quite explicit on their positive outcomes. Some records found a positive impact and superior learning progress regarding educational performance and learning [
35,
36,
47,
52]. On the other hand, despite such refereed impact, other articles proved that gaming in VR technology provided similar learning achievements when compared to traditional ways, such as physical cards approach [
42,
56], PowerPoint presentation [
21] and face-to-face learning (class) [
37,
46], improving students’ learning interest.
Furthermore, it was also found some proposed gaming applications that, when tested, had positive results towards learning. According to the research results, some of them improved students’ phonetics learning performance, and efficiency [
40,
54] and others proved that students had motivation, attitude and interest in using the systems and still have positive results towards learning a second language. [
38,
39,
43,
51,
53,
55] Some of these studies report that besides having positive results [
49], participants highlighted the value of interacting with native speakers [
43] since it places students in the context related to the target language and technology that contextualised learning is efficient in improving learning attitudes [
41]. Also, this simulation of real-life scenarios can increase virtual reality experience and cultural knowledge [
44].
Supplementary to this positive results previously mentioned, it is important to refer that some articles also indicate not so good elements about the use of this technology. One of these cases are referred by Anderson et al. [
57] on their article where it was added that extended gaming exposure would likely lead to headache and eye strain. Another side that was taken into consideration is relative to technical elements. Chen [
44] on his experience had to deal with unexpected computer freezing and connection interruptions, in other words, unstable technical difficulties. Likewise, Cheng et al. [
58] had difficulties with the technology, but this time with the element of interaction, reporting that participants had problems with reading and interacting with the UI in the environment. Besides, participants also expressed negative feelings such as dizziness and sickness. Negative sides of gamified VR, specifically for the learning of a foreign/second language, are not usually reported so further investigation is needed to state major negative factors of its usage.
As it was said before, interactions between native and non-native speakers are helpful in second language learning, and games are a greater learning intermediary since some allow communication between communities. Therefore, cooperative game-play becomes a component that contributes to second language acquisition [
46] since it provides real-time feedback and the learner is presented with vocabulary in context, making it easier to learn and understand the target language [
48,
57], and, also, improving their writing competence [
45]. According to some students’ observations, this learning method is enjoyable, fun, motivating, improves their learning interest and decreases cognition load [
50,
56]. Regarding the articles that were neutral about the outcomes of learning: Cheng, Yang and Andersen [
58] study result had no obvious evidence that the learning improved since the difference was not statistically significant; Yang et al. [
59] article also presented no significant difference in their pretest and post-test of English achievement, between the experimental and control group; and Hansen and Petersen [
60] study results showed that virtual reality could be used without decreasing the learner test scores. However, both teachers and students had trouble seeing it as a direct substitute for teacher based training.
Such a novel approach to second language learning corresponds to a sphere of didactic opportunities which may well enhance the learning process and its efficacy due to its many attractive elements as inspired by the world of Games. Indeed, the very process of engaging students, motivating actions, coming up with solutions to specific learning obstacles, the significant levels of interaction, the entertaining aspects of storytelling, the constant feedback, among others, are the very features of this new approach to a second language learning, which corresponds to the very reality as lived by today’s students [
66].
Although some articles did not inform about learning outcomes [
61,
62,
63,
64], they were neutral, or did not have evidence, [
58,
59,
60] or were not applicable [
65], they too evaluated the learning of a second language in a game scenario but focused on others variables. For example, it was found that such technology is notable in bettering students’ motivation and effectiveness [
61] and that the students positively receive this kind of approach and teachers [
60] and promote their awareness of the environment [
63].
In terms of covered educational stages, primary education (or first stage of basic education) was the most common, followed by lower secondary (or second stage of basic education), not corroborating Parmaxi [
31] systematic review where it was found that the majority of the studies included university students, but corroborates Solak and Erdem [
30] analysis where it is mentioned that undergraduate population were the most prevalent. This finding can be explained by the fact that students from primary education, or the first stage of basic education, usually have the same level of knowledge when it is about a secondary language. However, more investigation would be needed to understand if this idea/statement could be corroborated or not.
As proved in Parmaxi review [
31], most of the studies conducted had English as their target language, corroborated with the developed research. Although Parmaxi’s study was made with records between two thousand and fifteen (2015) and two thousand and eighteen (2018), English still is the most used language for evaluating learning outcomes in a foreign language, followed by German and Chinese. In his article, Rao [
67] said that there are several reasons that several reasons makes English the language that occupies the highest position among all the languages. This language is used by people worldwide and plays a massive role in many fields such as education, business, science, research, and much more areas. In this way, it is the language more frequently used for internet purposes and in business communication.
Nevertheless, these results could be biased by a possible limitation introduced by eligibility criteria: to consider only works written in English or Portuguese. This is mitigated by the fact that despite the language in which the article was written, we have not excluded the manuscripts by the language addressed in the learning process. Also, the core of the body of knowledge is written in English. For that reason, the most relevant works would follow this tendency even if they consider the teaching of other languages as a foreign language.
Related to the evaluation made by the authors of the included records, the focal point of every study was the Learning factor, followed by Motivation, Attitude, Cognitive Workload, Enjoyment, Flow, Satisfaction and Usability, which do not corroborate Lin and Lan [
29] content analysis, of findings in literature from 2004 to 2013, where the most commonly investigated research topics were interactive communication, behaviours, affections and beliefs.
As seen, some statements could not be corroborated through previously seen reviews, and this can be justified by the lack of research on studies about gaming with VR technology to learn a second language/foreign language, and with the time difference between the screened records, meaning that studies and technology are evolving, together with the objectives of the studies are too.
A considerable majority of articles refer mainly to learning, education, and outcomes, but it is not explained why the authors have chosen some specific technology instead of another. For example, in some records based on evaluation with augmented reality, it is only informed that it improves the user’s knowledge since it requires more interaction and participation from him/her [
35], a significant part of them promotes motivation and engagement [
36], and that increases students interest [
37], besides bringing an element of gamification to the learning task [
38]. The found literature was not made any comparison between technologies and the objective of choosing the more indicated one. This can bring us to a conclusion/theory that most studies have used augmented reality because it is the most affordable one, both to the investigators and the students.
Figure 9 refers to the author’s quality assessment evaluation in terms of limitations on the articles, as described in
Section 2.6. Most of the found limitations were the size of the sample, meaning that many articles only made preliminary studies, for example, the Chang, Sheldon and Hand’s article [
43], where the project was in a preliminary stage, and it was made a study with 11 participants to have some initial observations; the study by Garcia et al. [
55] was made with a focus group of 4 participants, and the results were based in observations; and Pu and Zhong’s [
56] article were participants made the evaluation, 5 in the experimental group and 3 in the control group. This limitation was also indicated by the author: “the number of test samples may affect the speculation of the experimental results”. Besides the limitation of a small sample, some studies where made based on observations [
44,
46,
50,
55] being, in this way, exploratory, and the results are only suggestive and not confirmed. Therefore it is necessary to reinforce these studies to be corroborated.
The author made an overall subjective rating of the selected articles. Most of them were labelled as less than great (43.8% are reasonable, and 12.5% are poor), as can be seen in
Figure 10. Most of the bad rating was due to the confusion in the studies’ evaluation and methodology. It was found a lack of well-explained results and reported procedures steps, missing in this way the heart of the investigation, leaving the reader with some questions about the study and the way that the authors obtained the reported results. Studies also stated that “x” solution is better than “x” traditional way. However, in some cases, it is never made a statistical and objective comparison and the “x” traditional way is not evaluated too.
Figure 8 shows a significant difference from 2015 onward, more pronounced in the word “learning”. This can be justified because, after 2015, the equipment of VR became affordable to the public in general [
68].
Even though most of the articles did not identify limitations, there are still many records with some. There is still a lack of investigation addressing technology and tech-related devices to achieve a good learning outcome (second language learning). Although this systematic review of empirical research was directed to gaming in VR technologies, there are still limited number of records based on fully immersive technologies, although it was considered as VR games that used 3D worlds.
This empirical research recognise the potential of the use of VR technologies with gaming strategies to benefit and support the learning of a second language. In this way, the results of this research validate the adoption of this gamified technology to advance in the area of education and to enhance its outcomes. The complement with traditional learning methods are a must to advance in the area of knowledge in a way to facilitate the adaptation of learning in different methods of interaction and different contexts, specially in the area of learning a foreign language.
Therefore, this research grant a whole review in the area of the application of gamified VR technologies, to learn a second/foreign language, without limitations of year of publication and the target learned language, offering the reader a full experience in what has been done in this area and which outcomes have been found within its usage.
4.2. Research Agenda
After the conclusion of the systematic review, the authors concluded that virtual reality is getting much interest from researchers to understand if the gamification using this technology can help them in the learning process, in this case, of a foreign language. Although this interest, there is still a lack of sense in terms of investigating the area. With the gather information, the following research agenda is purposed by the authors.
First of all, it is crucial to have some agreement between investigators related to the used terms. When searching the terms that some article evaluated, sometimes the same factor has a different name in another article evaluating the same thing. In this way, it would be important to develop guideline research to guide the researchers to use universal terms, helping the general understanding between investigators and facilitating the search of research with the pretended factors by the searcher.
Second, since it has been already made several studies about the level of satisfaction and usability by the student towards virtual reality technology, or the application itself, it is time to move forward and make more extensive studies with larger samples in order to corroborate the results that the current state of the art indicates.
Third, to save some time and to avoid duplicated studies, it would be gratifying to carry research considering another already made. When developing some kind of study, it should be made some investigation previous the planning of experiences to know if the intended results were already statistically verified by another previously made study. In this way, this would help advance the area with an in-depth study, using a previously made investigation and reinforce the results with the results of a more focused area. Suppose the investigators follow this way of thinking. In that case, the area will grow in the most different branches of knowledge, facilitating the interested people’s decisions interested people in implementing this technology.
Fourth, it is needed to carry studies comparing technologies so the researchers can have a scientific foundation to determine what they should use on their experiences/investigation and why the chosen technology is the more indicated one.
Fifth and final, it is necessary to have more investigation to understand which educational stages are the most appropriate to have experiences and if it is within possibility their English level since it needs to be levelheaded between participants.