## 5 Conclusions  
This study aimed to explore the effects of collaboration within a VR escape room environment in the Metaverse on learners' academic performance and learning experience in the context of English as a Foreign Language. The research provided valuable insights into the potential of immersive, collaborative learning experiences to positively affect both the educational and emotional aspects of language acquisition. As the field of immersive learning continues to grow, future research is necessary to enhance the applicability of these findings and to expand their impact across different educational contexts. In order to offer pathways for advancing this area of study, it is also essential to acknowledge the limitations of the current research, which can be identified both in the development and application of the escape room as well as in the execution of the study itself. First of all, a significant limitation is the small number and uneven gender distribution of participants recruited for this study, which makes it difficult to generalise the findings beyond this specific context. To address this, future research should include larger sample sizes and consider testing different populations in various educational settings to ensure broader applicability. Additionally, taking into account that collaboration can sometimes have drawbacks, such as personality clashes or unequal contribution, and that working preferences can vary among individuals, it becomes evident that further research is needed to explore how specific learner characteristics--such as comfort with collaboration, personal relationships and working styles--impact collaborative learning environments. It is also important to acknowledge that the study used different interaction methods for the collaborative condition, namely remote and face-to-face, to accommodate more participants, which may have impacted the results. Therefore, future studies should specifically investigate different modes of collaboration but also varying group sizes to understand how these factors shape interaction dynamics and influence the effectiveness of educational VRERs in the Metaverse. Another limitation is that, although the study used mixed methods, i.e., both qualitative and quantitative data to examine learners' perceived and actual learning gains, respectively, the absence of a delayed post-test to compare the long-term effects of the intervention limits the ability to assess the retention of knowledge or sustained impact of the intervention over time in either one of the conditions. This would be an important aspect to include in future research to assess whether learning gains persist over time. Furthermore, this study relied on a single VR escape room session. On the one hand, additional sessions could help students become more confident with the Metaverse platforms, allowing them to focus more on the learning content and less on managing the technology. On the other hand, research on virtual reality learning often observes a novelty effect, where initial enthusiasm can lead to high engagement, but this effect usually diminishes with repeated exposure [66]. Thus, future studies could also examine how repeated utilisation of virtual reality escape rooms could affect learning outcomes, engagement, and motivation over time. Some technical difficulties also posed challenges during the study, particularly for learners with lower-end devices or limited technological experience. These issues may have impacted their overall experience and responses, highlighting the importance of thoroughly testing VR environments before implementation in real educational settings to mediate such instances. However, designing high-quality environments is not as straightforward. It heavily depends on the technical expertise of the designer, who is usually a teacher with limited programming skills, as well as on the VR development tools, which often have their own limitations.