Understanding University Students’ Acceptance of Virtual Reality for Recycling Education: The Roles of Immersion and Interactivity

Background This study investigated how immersion and interactivity influence university students’ technology acceptance in a virtual reality (VR)-based recycling in the education context. In this study, recycling education was not treated merely as a general form of environmental education, but as a specific action-oriented learning context in which university students were expected to understand, practise, and evaluate recycling-related tasks through immersive and interactive learning experiences. Methods A 2 × 2 between-subjects experiment was conducted to examine the main and interaction effects of immersion (VR-based vs PC-based delivery) and interactivity (high vs low) on three technology acceptance variables, namely perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, and perceived playfulness. A total of 204 undergraduate students from environment-related disciplines at a university in Hangzhou, China, participated in the study. The participants were assigned to one of four experimental conditions. After completing the assigned recycling learning task, participants responded to a post-exposure questionnaire. The data were analysed using multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) and follow-up two-way analyses of variance (ANOVAs). Results A significant immersion × interactivity interaction was identified, indicating that the positive effect of interactivity was stronger under high-immersion conditions. Follow-up univariate analyses further revealed that higher immersion and higher interactivity improved perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, and perceived playfulness. Among the four conditions examined, the group subjected to high-immersion/high-interactivity reported the most positive responses across all three outcomes. Conclusions These findings suggested that students’ acceptance of VR-based recycling learning systems is enhanced when immersive delivery is combined with meaningful interaction. This study extended the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) to immersive sustainability communication and education and provided implications for designing more engaging VR-based learning environments in higher education.