Considerations for VR Integration into Human-Centered Computing Education

Virtual Reality (VR) presents opportunities for Human-Centered Computing (HCC) education by facilitating immersive and experiential learning that may help students engage with complex user needs and real-world design contexts. Despite long-term interest in VR in HCC education, its integration into regular teaching practices across higher education remains limited, with a notable gap in understanding educators’ perspectives on the practical considerations that influence the integration of VR into their teaching. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 15 HCC educators following a brief VR simulation using a head-mounted display and a questionnaire on demographics and prior VR experience. Using thematic analysis, our qualitative findings reveal 21 practical considerations relating to three key themes: (a) technology access and provisioning, (b) pedagogical considerations, and (c) VR design and sourcing considerations. Educators identified diverse practical considerations for effective VR integration, including equipment and tech support, health and safety, cost, instructional design, training needs, and VR content development. Our research findings offer actionable implications for computing educators and administrators to inform the planning and integration of VR-supported learning experiences, and VR designers to design pedagogically-suitable VR experiences. Our study also identified seven future research directions, including the need to examine disciplinary-specific VR needs, develop decision-making frameworks for content sourcing, explore pedagogical facilitation strategies, and investigate real-world implementation dynamics in authentic classroom settings.