Abstract
The rapid advancement of digital technologies has engendered considerable transformations in educational practices. The COVID-19 pandemic prompted a rapid surge in the adoption of distance learning, expanding opportunities for educational resource sharing across geographical barriers. However, distance learning models also face challenges, including limited interaction and engagement among students and disparities in educational resources between urban and rural areas. To address these concerns, this study integrated virtual reality (VR) technology with a blended synchronous teaching model on the EWova platform to construct a learning scenario in an immersive and interactive educational metaverse to enhance students' sense of social presence and learning engagement. The study included three groups of fifth-grade students from three elementary schools in Taiwan: a control group, which watched the lessons on a flat screen without using VR devices (a traditional distance learning scenario); experimental group A, which used VR devices to watch and virtually interact with live extended reality (XR) teaching materials; and experimental group B, which used VR devices to participate in live broadcasts and virtually interact with the teacher in real time. The effects of different VR integration levels on the learning process were analyzed using quantitative and qualitative data. Results indicated that students in the two experimental groups exhibited significantly higher social presence than those in the control group, particularly regarding interaction and emotional engagement. Moreover, the groups differed significantly in terms of engagement, with the anchor group (experiment group B) exhibiting the highest performance; this suggests that interaction with and immediate guidance from the teacher positively affected students' behavior and emotional engagement. The findings support the theory of social presence and multilevel participation and enrich understanding of teachers' experiences with collaborative design and immersive technology integration, offering an empirical basis for future instructional design in educational metaverse environments.