Examination of Postgraduate Theses on Virtual Reality in the Field of Social Sciences in Turkey

The aim of this study is to examine the open access theses in the Social Sciences group with virtual reality in the title of the review results made in the Council of Higher Education Thesis Center, through systematic review and content analysis method. It is thought that this study will narrow the wide scope of the notion of virtual reality and can describe the change and development over the years in the context of the field of social sciences. In the research, 54 postgraduate theses were examined and the distribution of the theses with virtual reality in their title were analyzed according to the years they were published, by type, by languages, by universities, by departments, according to the purpose of theses, by type of virtual reality software used, by type of virtual reality hardware, by the names of software and hardware. Since theses on educational sciences were intense, analysis was also carried out according to research methods, data collection tools and samples. In addition, the distribution of keywords in theses was also determined. Based on the obtained data, the highest number of theses was reached in 2019, while most of the theses were completed as master's thesis. While theses on virtual reality are mostly completed at Bahçesehir University, they intensify on the Department of Computer Education and Instructional Technology in terms of department type. In the theses, especially virtual reality game experiences are aimed. 3600 Video and 3D Games are the most used software types, while the Virtual Reality Headsets are the most used hardware. Oculus Rift is the most used virtual reality hardware brand. Beside these, it is found that quantitative method is mostly preferred, the most used data collection tool is questionnaire, and the most used sample group is undergraduate students.