Review of Virtual Reality Applications in Agriculture Education and Recommendations for Future Research

The rapid advancement of virtual reality (VR) technology offers significant potential to address the skills gap in agricultural education and workforce development. This integrative review examines existing literature on the application of VR in educational settings, with a specific focus on agricultural education at the secondary and postsecondary levels. Immersive VR environments provide unique learning affordances, including enhanced spatial knowledge, increased engagement, and improved skill transfer to real-world situations. While industries such as medicine, construction, and manufacturing have integrated VR for training, it is still in the early stages of adoption in education. Findings reveal that while there is limited research on VR in agricultural education, promising examples, such as virtual welding simulators and virtual field trips, demonstrate its potential to offer safe, cost-effective, and flexible training solutions. The review identifies key areas for future research, such as the development of pedagogical content for VR, user experience evaluation, and the adoption of VR technology by educators. This review also presents a research agenda aimed at expanding the use of VR technology in agricultural education, emphasizing the need for further empirical studies to explore its effectiveness in bridging the skills gap and enhancing workforce readiness.