VR and AR virtual welding for psychomotor skills: a systematic review

Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) continue to play an important role in vocational training in the current pandemic and Industrial Revolution 4.0 era. Welding is one of the highly demanded vocational skills for various manufacturing and construction industries. Students need to undergo many practical sessions to become skilful welders. However, conventional training is very costly in terms of material, time, and infrastructure. Hence, we explore the intervention of VR and AR in welding training, which includes the research purposes, VR and AR technologies, and welding concepts and activities. We performed a comprehensive search of articles from the year 2000 to 2021. After filtering through inclusion criteria and full-text assessment, a total of 42 articles were coded and evaluated. While there has been growth in VR and AR welding training research, there is little discussion in their effectiveness for supporting distance learning, and most studies targeted entry-level students. Our main contributions are classifying primary functions in the virtual welding workshops and their adaptation to the psychomotor domain. We hope these results can empower the research community to develop and improve the VR and AR system and evaluation instruments to support vocational training, especially during this pandemic.