["European Journal of Education, Volume 61, Issue 2, June 2026. ", "\nABSTRACT\nThe study takes the Physical Literacy Index (PLI) and uses it to improve the effectiveness of conventional and Virtual Reality (VR) enhanced physical education. The study aims to close the gap in the need for measuring instruments in conventional and VR‐learning forms of physical education. The study includes three classes of 32 students aged 11 and 12 from one of the Shanghai schools. The participants were placed in two experimental groups and one control group. The second experimental group received intervention through interactive VR‐learning tools. The PLI test was performed in both experimental groups before and after the month‐long intervention. As a result of the proposed intervention, the mean PLI scores increased from 66.94 to 75.44 in the first experimental group and from 65.63 to 79.93 in the second experimental group. The results obtained indicate that the proposed approach may be useful in the implementation of educational tools with the integration of virtual reality tools in physical education and related fields of training.\n"]