Virtual reality and augmented reality technologies and their role in developing students ' knowledge and skills in the field of graphic design

The revolutionary outcomes of the Fourth Industrial Revolution are many and varied and touch human life in many aspects, especially educational aspects. Two of the most important technological developments affecting the field of graphic design are virtual reality and augmented reality technologies. There is no doubt that these two technologies promise a lot of unique opportunities to improve the teaching and learning experience, develop thinking skills, sharpen students ' motivation and activate active learning in various disciplines, especially students of the art education department studying graphic design courses at Sultan Qaboos University. Preparing these students academically is no longer the same as it was ten years ago, due to the many technological data produced by the Fourth Industrial Revolution, such as three-dimensional printing, virtual museums, artificial intelligence, and others. The teaching of three-dimensional printing technology has been started in the teaching of graphic design at the Department of art education since 2019, and this has had a great impact on stimulating students ' motivation and developing their higher thinking skills. Hence, the research problem of this study arose in an attempt to identify the roles played by virtual reality and augmented reality technologies in developing the knowledge and skills of students in the field of graphic design at the Department of art education at Sultan Qaboos University, in order to integrate these two technologies into the curriculum. Methodology: the researchers will apply the experiment by teaching the digital design software available in virtual reality and augmented reality glasses during the spring semester of 2024 in the graphic design course (2) the method of continuous observation will be applied to measure the development of three aspects of these students 1) motivation towards learning, 2) technical skills, 3) higher thinking skills, and special measurement cards will be designed, and interviews will be held with these students to discover the impact of these two technologies in these three aspects. The researchers expect that graphic design students are able to take advantage of this technology and produce digital works that are created in a pleasant virtual environment by wearing electronic glasses connected to the internet. Therefore, this study aims to identify the extent to which contemporary technology in general and virtual reality and augmented reality technologies in particular are able to develop the level of motivation towards learning, improve technical skills, and develop higher thinking skills among students of art education who are good and intended to acquire contemporary and distinguished technical skills, which they transfer to school students at general education levels, thus completing the development cycle between the qualification of these teachers and the target group, namely school students.