# Predictors of Engagement in Virtual Reality Storytelling Environments about Migration
## 2 Literature Review and Related Work  
### Virtual Reality and Engagement  
The number of scientific investigations of VR and engagement has increased considerably over the past 8 years or so. To identify the publication trend in the field of VR and engagement, a specific search by the article title was conducted in the Scopus database by using the following query: TITLE (engagement AND \"virtual reality\"). This kind of scoping search allowed us to retrieve results that surely addressed both topics of engagement and VR. From this search, 131 documents were found. Figure 1 shows the publication trend. Since 2016, there has been a growing interest; 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022 were the years when more documents were published, and 2023 seems to have the same tendency. In this context, it seems that studies related to engagement and VR are still in the research arena and are gaining momentum.  
In the same search, documents with more than 100 citations report different findings, such as a higher degree of engagement in VR scenarios [18]; similar engagement between 2D VR scenarios and the real world [19]; that engagement is related to the feel of being present, but the degree of presence is no always connected to the VR experience or the response to a specific treatment [20]; or that interactivity plays a crucial role in participants engagement when designing VR exercises for rehabilitation [9].  
When talking about VR experiences, people might feel emotionally engaged if they like the content and are focused. This idea is supported in the study by [PERSON] and [PERSON] [21], who compared a real-life tourism experience with a VR 360\({}^{\circ}\) video. In that study, participants in the VR 360\({}^{\circ}\) video experience reported a higher level of spatial presence leading to a higher emotional engagement.  
In other VR studies, some variables have been found to be related to engagement. For instance, [PERSON] et al. [22] studied the effects of a desktop-based VR environment considering the cognitive load as a factor that affects student engagement. [PERSON] [23] stated that immersive interfaces can promote engagement. [PERSON] et al. [24] conducted a study in which 85 students were exposed to a desktop-based VR gallery of a digital media course. The authors evaluated factors influencing cognitive engagement in the 3D VR learning experience and found that learning outcomes, problem-solving, and increased engagement had a positive correlation. [PERSON] et al. [25] measured presence, engagement, and immersion in a VR 360\({}^{\circ}\) storytelling environment involving cultural heritage. The application was tested by 16 participants, and user experience (UX) was one of the elements that positively influenced engagement. [PERSON] et al. [26] conducted a study in which 153 middle school students interacted with a narrative-centered learning microbiology environment. The authors found that engagement was associated with better learning gains. In the study by [PERSON] et al. [27], the authors introduced a mixed-reality storytelling application in which children could describe how a story could end. The authors measured engagement and found that children preferred to spend more time with the application than using words to describe facts about the story.  
In summary, current research on VR and engagement has focused on investigating to what extent participants engage with a VR environment. However, there is a lack of research on the predictors of engagement when participants use VR environments. This gap in the literature motivated the study presented in this paper.