Economic and environmental sustainability, together with flexibility in education, are the main driving forces for integrating virtual reality laboratories into welding education. A multidisciplinary team consisting of welding educators and immersive computing researchers developed a virtual reality laboratory focused on teaching welding processes and welding metallurgy. Fifty students in manufacturing engineering used the virtual laboratory in seven courses offered over 18 months, and 20 educators attended informative and training sessions. The virtual reality laboratory was continuously improved based on the feedback received from students and educators during that period, and the main goal in this work was to assess the eventual benefits of the virtual reality laboratory as an educational tool versus the real campus laboratories. In terms of effectiveness, 74% of the students considered the virtual reality laboratory to be an effective learning tool.

However, when the students were asked if physical laboratories should be replaced by virtual ones, most wanted to continue with physical laboratories, seeing the virtual laboratory as a complementary tool offering additional learning opportunities. Interestingly, despite educators unanimously agreeing on the benefits of the tool, resistance to implementing the tool in their courses was observed.