The need to virtually collaborate across distributed locations has drastically increased. Developments such as the COVID-19 pandemic and new IT platforms like the metaverse have spurred a host of new immersive social applications that are accessed through head-mounted displays. This is expected to stimulate a surge in research on extended reality–supported collaborative learning (XRCL) which refers to distributed collaboration situations where immersive technology such as head-mounted displays are used as a medium for collaborative learning. The primary aim of this article is to critically examine the potential pedagogical benefits and limitations of using XRCL with the objective of developing a theoretical framework that describes the fundamental factors that make immersive collaborative learning unique: the theory of immersive collaborative learning (TICOL). In TICOL, we propose that technological features, social affordances, and pedagogical techniques can foster four psychological factors that we define as fundamentally different in XRCL compared to collaboration that occurs through traditional systems (e.g., laptops): social presence, physical presence, body ownership, and agency. These are central factors that we hypothesize can transform the processes and contexts of collaboration through their influence on the quality of cognitive and socio-emotional social interaction, the social space, and ultimately learning outcomes. Since XRCL research is in its infancy, we hope that TICOL can provide a theoretical basis for developing the field by motivating researchers to empirically challenge and build on our hypotheses and ultimately develop a deeper understanding of if and how immersive media influences collaborative learning.

跨分布式地点进行虚拟协作的需求急剧增加。COVID-19 大流行等发展以及 Metaverse 等新 IT 平台催生了许多可通过头戴式显示器访问的新沉浸式社交应用程序。预计这将刺激扩展现实支持的协作学习（XRCL）的研究激增，XRCL是指使用头戴式显示器等沉浸式技术作为协作学习媒介的分布式协作情况。本文的主要目的是批判性地研究使用 XRCL 的潜在教学优势和局限性，目的是开发一个理论框架来描述使沉浸式协作学习独一无二的基本因素：沉浸式协作学习理论 (TICOL)。在 TICOL 中，我们提出，技术特征、社会可供性和教学技术可以促进四种心理因素，我们将其定义为 XRCL 中与通过传统系统（例如笔记本电脑）进行的协作相比根本不同的心理因素：社会存在、身体存在、身体所有权和代理机构。我们假设这些核心因素可以通过影响认知和社会情感社交互动的质量、社交空间以及最终的学习结果来改变协作的过程和环境。由于 XRCL 研究还处于起步阶段，我们希望 TICOL 能够通过激励研究人员以实证方式挑战和建立我们的假设，并最终深入了解沉浸式媒体是否以及如何影响协作学习，从而为该领域的发展提供理论基础。