All users who participated in the study were selected from volunteers. When selecting the study group, convenience sampling method was used. The pilot of the study was conducted with five students studying at a public university in Central Anatolia Region of Turkey and the final implementation was conducted with 20 students studying in different departments of the same university.

The formative research technique aims to be the basis for designing or improving instructional practices as well as being a design theory. Formative research technique was used in the study.

Another aim of this study is to identify the problems that may arise during virtual reality applications and to offer solutions to these problems. In this study, it is aimed that the historical space of Malatya Caravanserai can be visited in three dimensional virtual reality environment, as well as the application of different virtual reality applications to users and taking users’ opinions about these virtual reality environments. Besides, reasons such as high financial costs may obscure them to be in the places where they want to be or to perform the activities they want to. In addition to this, physical disabilities may also be another reason that hinder them. People may not be able to spare time to do whatever they want to do because of their heavy workload. It was concluded that virtual reality applications could be used as an effective course support material in formal learning environments. The participants expressed positive opinions about virtual reality applications. Virtual reality applications have created a high level of presence for all students in the experimental groups. The highest increase was found in experimental group 1 and the lowest increase was found in the comparison group. After the implementation, the achievement of the experimental and comparison groups increased statistically. In addition, students’ and lecturers’ opinions about virtual reality applications were obtained through semi-structured interviews. Additionally, “Presence Questionnaire in Virtual Environments” and “Three-Dimensional Virtual Learning Environments Evaluation Scale” were applied to experimental groups. Fire knowledge test was applied to all students before and after the implementation.

Experimental group 1 participated in theoretical lectures and virtual reality applications, experimental group 2 participated only in virtual reality applications, and the comparison group participated only in theoretical lectures. The implementation consisted of 96 students, 32 students per experimental groups (experimental 1 and experimental 2) and a comparison group. Five students participated in each pilot. In the first pilot implementation Oculus Rift DK2, in the second pilot implementation Samsung Gear VR SM-R323 and in the implementation Oculus Rift DK2 and VR Box 2.0 goggles were used. The study included two pilot implementations and one implementation. Designed case, a type of formative research, was utilized. This study examines the potential of virtual reality applications developed for headmounted displays as effective course support materials.

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