# Engineering the Future: Evaluation of Virtual Reality Across Project Lifecycle Stages
## 5 Discussion  
This study examines the perceived practicality of Virtual Reality (VR) across various stages of the systems engineering lifecycle, highlighting that its perceived value varies depending on both the nature of each project phase and individual-level characteristics. The participants reported significant differences in VR utility across lifecycle stages, with training and proposal and investor recruitment rated as the most practical contexts. In contrast, the specification and requirement definition phase received the lowest ratings--likely due to its abstract and text-heavy nature, which is less supported by VR's immersive strengths. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c} \hline \hline
**Analysis Type** & **Key Findings** & **Relevant Papers** \\ \hline GLM Profile Analysis & Perceived practicality of VR is highest during the & \\  & Training and Proposal stages and lowest during the & [43; 48] \\  & Specification stage. & \\ \hline CFA & Participants’ responses indicate that perceived & \\  & practicality of VR is based on one clear idea, and it is & [31; 34; 35] \\  & especially strong during the Design, Development, and & \\  & Testing stages. & \\ \hline SEM & Perceived practicality of VR is lower among participants & \\  & with higher education levels and greater familiarity with & \\  & VR and higher among those with greater willingness to & \\  & adopt the technology. & \\ \hline SEM & In the Development stage, participants with higher & \\  & education levels perceive VR as less practical, whereas in & \\  & the Design and Testing stages, participants who are more & \\  & familiar with or willing to adopt VR perceive it as & \\  & more practical. & \\ \hline CHAID Tree & Perceived practicality of VR is highest among & \\  & participants who are open to adoption, moderately & \\  & familiar with the technology, have technical (rather than & [43; 48; 73] \\  & academic) education, and are either younger or older but & \\  & not middle-aged. & \\ \hline CATPCA & Perceived practicality of VR is higher among participants & \\  & in engineering roles, those with extensive professional & \\  & experience, individuals in leadership positions, and those & \\  & with direct hands-on experience using VR. & \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 2: Summary of key findings and relevant papers across analytical methods and project lifecycle stages. From a practical standpoint, these findings strongly suggest that organizations should prioritize VR investment and deployment for stages where its immersive and interactive capabilities offer clear advantages, such as in creating engaging training simulations or compelling client presentations during proposal development. Conversely, for early abstract planning stages like specification and requirement definition, where VR was perceived as less useful, alternative digital tools or more traditional methods might currently be more resource-efficient, or new types of VR applications tailored for such abstract tasks may need to be developed. These findings are consistent with prior studies. For example, [PERSON] et al. [PERSON] et al. (2018) emphasized the value of VR in training environments that rely on experiential learning and spatial understanding, while [PERSON] et al. [PERSON] et al. (2018) demonstrated how VR enhances stakeholder engagement and persuasive communication during proposal stages. Both studies reinforce the current results by showing that VR delivers the greatest benefit in phases where interactivity, visualization, and user immersion play a central role. These stage-specific perceptions can also be interpreted through the lens of the Kano model [PERSON] (2015), which categorizes user expectations into required, performance-related, and unexpected \"delighter\" attributes. Applying this model to the current findings, VR was observed as a \"delighter\" in the training and proposal phases--where users do not necessarily expect for immersive technologies but find them highly engaging and valuable when present.