  Technological advances can bring many benefits to our daily lives, and this
includes the education and training sectors. In the last years, online
education, teaching and training models are becoming increasingly adopted, in
part influenced by major circumstances like the pandemic. The use of
videoconferencing tools in such sectors has become fundamental, but recent
research has shown their multiple limitations in terms of relevant aspects,
like comfort, interaction quality, situational awareness, (co-)presence, etc.
This study elaborates on a new communication, interaction and collaboration
medium that becomes a promising candidate to overcome such limitations, by
adopting immersive technologies: Social Virtual Reality (VR). First, this
article provides a comprehensive review of studies having provided initial
evidence on (potential) benefits provided by Social VR in relevant use cases
related to education, such as online classes, training and co-design
activities, virtual conferences and interactive visits to virtual spaces, many
of them including comparisons with classical tools like 2D conferencing.
Likewise, the potential benefits of integrating realistic and volumetric users'
representations to enable multi-party holographic communications in Social VR
is also discussed. Next, this article identifies and elaborates on key
limitations of existing studies in this field, including both technological and
methodological aspects. Finally, it discusses key remaining challenges to be
addressed to fully exploit the potential of Social VR in the education sector.
