Virtual reality-enhanced collaborative learning and self-reported metacognitive awareness in a Chinese EFL context: the mediating role of social interaction and the moderating role of learner engagement

This study examined the association between virtual reality (VR)-enhanced collaborative learning environments and self-reported metacognitive awareness among 520 Chinese university EFL students. Drawing on sociocultural theory and technology-enhanced learning frameworks, we proposed and tested a moderated mediation model in which social interaction mediates the VR, metacognition association, and learner engagement moderates the mediation pathway. Structural equation modeling (CB-SEM) with latent moderated structural equations (LMS) and bootstrap confidence intervals (5,000 resamples) was employed. Results indicated that VR-enhanced collaborative learning was positively associated with self-reported metacognitive awareness (β = 0.312, p < 0.001) and with social interaction (β = 0.441, p < 0.001). Social interaction was further associated with self-reported metacognitive awareness (β = 0.298, p < 0.001), conforming the indirect association (0.131, 95% CI [0.078, 0.192]). Learner engagement significantly moderated the social interaction, metacognition pathway (β = 0.178, p < 0.001), such that the indirect association was stronger among more highly engaged learners. These findings extend existing scholarship on technology-enhanced language learning and offer context-specific implications for designing VR-based collaborative learning in Chinese university EFL settings; their generalizability to other populations and instructional contexts remains to be established. Because the design was cross-sectional, the relationships reported are associational and should not be interpreted causally.