Past, present, and future of virtual reality-based biological science education (2010–2025): a BERTopic-driven analysis

Virtual reality (VR) is transforming biological science education through the creation of immersive simulated environments. This study employs the Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers Topic (BERTopic) modeling technique to conduct a structural and evolutionary analysis of the literature on VR in biological science education from January 2010 to July 2025. By analyzing 164 peer-reviewed articles, we identified five core research topics and mapped their structural relationships and temporal evolution. The results reveal a core-satellite structure within the field, with technology-enhanced education in biological design (Topic 0) as the central topic, surrounded by specialized subfields such as data and imaging methods for integrated realities (Topic 2) and immersive technology and long-term memory (Topic 3), both of which have demonstrated synchronous growth since 2018. The study delineates a pedagogical framework encompassing content construction, immersive experience, assessment, and application. These findings provide data-driven evidence to support educational institutions in strategically allocating resources, particularly toward the emerging frontiers such as data integration and cognitive enhancement, thereby optimizing curriculum design and VR implementation in biological science education.