Exposure to practical activities with state of the act training facilities is key to effective students’ preparation in technical and vocational teacher education. In the midst of scarce resources, adequate provision of training facilities to help this group of students engage in meaningful practical activities in schools is limited. Virtual reality could be an alternative complement in this regard. The study investigated the awareness of instructional usage of virtual reality among students and lecturers of technical education in tertiary institutions in Rivers state, Nigeria. The study employed a descriptive survey research design. The study participants for the study comprised a total of 48 persons. This consisted of all 36 students and 12 lecturers of technical education programme from two tertiary institutions in Rivers State. Data were collected using a validated questionnaire with internal consistency coefficient of 0.89. Data gathered were analysed with frequency counts, percentages and Mann-Whitney U test. The result generally showed that there was low level of awareness of: the concept of virtual reality, using virtual reality for instructional delivery, names of some virtual reality application for instruction, desktop virtual reality application, immersive virtual reality application, collaborative virtual reality application, augmented reality applications, potential benefits of virtual reality application, and how to use virtual reality for enhancing instructional delivery in technical education
among students and lecturers. Although low level of awareness generally existed between students and lecturers, the students’ level of awareness was slightly higher than that of lecturers. Furthermore, there was no significant difference in the level of awareness of the instructional usage of virtual reality among
study participants from the two tertiary institutions investigated. Based on the results, it was recommended that organisation of seminars, workshops among others would enhance awareness of virtual reality among students and lecturers.