ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Virtual Real.
Sec. Virtual Reality and Human Behaviour
This article is part of the Research TopicExploring Meaningful Extended Reality (XR) Experiences: Psychological, Educational, and Data-Driven PerspectivesView all 13 articles
Understanding Extended VR Use in Undergraduate STEM Education: A Focused Ethnographic Case Study of Neuroanatomy Instruction
Provisionally accepted
- 1California State University, Fresno, Fresno, United States
- 2St John's University, New York, United States
- 3Brigham Young University, Provo, United States
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Background: While virtual reality (VR) shows promise for enhancing STEM education, most research relies on short interventions with pre-and post-designs, limiting the understanding of how classroom integration of VR unfolds across extended instructional periods and excluding instructor behavior and perspectives from analysis. Objective: This study examines instructor and student dynamics during semester-long VR integration in an undergraduate neuroanatomy lab instruction, applying the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) framework to analyze instructor knowledge profiles and the Expectancy-Value Theory (EVT) to examine student motivational responses. Methods: A focused ethnographic case study was conducted at a public university in California during the Spring 2024 semester. Data included seven classroom observations across 16 weeks, a 60-minute semi-structured instructor interview, and a 45-minute student focus group (n=6). Analysis employed theoretically grounded coding with TPACK and EVT constructs, triangulation across data sources, and inter-coder reliability procedures. Results: Three key findings emerged: (1) The instructor's TPACK profile revealed strong Technological Content Knowledge (TCK), i.e., understanding VR's potential for neuroanatomical visualization, but underdeveloped Technological Pedagogical Knowledge (TPK), which created implementation gaps; (2) Student experiences reflected EVT dynamics where low expectancy beliefs, unclear utility value perceptions, and elevated cost of VR overshadowed intrinsic value; (3) Misalignment between instructor TPACK assumptions and student EVT profiles generated friction and discrepancy that both parties recognized but could not fully resolve during the semester. Conclusion: This study demonstrates that effective VR integration requires alignment between the instructor's knowledge, especially technological pedagogical knowledge, and the student's This is a provisional file, not the final typeset article motivational dynamics. A TPACK-EVT integration framework is proposed to connect instructor knowledge to student motivation, offering a theoretical contribution to VR education research and practical implications for faculty development.
Keywords: expectancy-value theory, focused ethnography, higher education, Neuroanatomy, stem education, technology integration, TPACK, virtual reality
Received: 08 Jan 2026; Accepted: 09 Feb 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 Wu, Chen, Klassen and White. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Wei Wu
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