Keywords
Firefighting Training
Systematic review
VOSviewer
PRISMA
SDG4 Quality Education
How to Cite
Abstract
Virtual reality (VR) has become an increasingly important tool in training applications. This article presents a systematic review of the literature and a bibliometric analysis of the area of VR firefighting training systems in the optics of the end-user experience. In order to provide a comprehensive overview of the current state of knowledge in the area examined, a systematic literature review method based on the PRISMA guidelines was applied to a sample of studies retrieved from the Web of Science (WOS) and Scopus databases. The research questions were formulated with the objective of identifying key research topics, highlights, study results, variables and measures applied, possible future research directions, as well as the most active authors and countries with the highest number of publications. For bibliographic analysis, the VOSviewer software tool was applied to build and visualise bibliographic networks.
A comprehensive bibliographic analysis of a sample of 55 studies has led to the identification of five overarching clusters, thus providing a comprehensive visualisation of the extant research terrain in the examined area. The study contributed to the identification of these clusters and the most significant topics through keyword occurrence, the number of connections with other key words, and the average year of publication. The most productive authors and the countries with the highest number of publications were presented.
In the content analysis, 19 studies published in peer-reviewed journals were included to identify the research highlights, tested variables, and indicators. Of the studies included in the content analysis, 78.9% created their own VR training system and used experimental research designs to assess their benefits compared to traditional training methods or to compare the benefits of various types of VR training systems. The VR firefighting training systems covered building, forest, aerial, and shipboard firefighting. Based on the average year of publication, research attention has focused on ‘biofeedback measures’, ‘serious game-based learning’, and ‘stress assessment measures’ within VR firefighting training research. The authorship and geographical distribution of the publications are presented.
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