Virtual reality (VR) technology provides new possibilities for educators to design and optimize learning experiences. However, it remains largely unclear how virtual learning environments can be engineered to achieve measurable improvements in the learners' performance. To advance the development and application of VR learning technologies, we systematized instruction principles from the literature known to be congruent with cognitive and affective learning outcomes. We then combined these principles and designed a VR training program, which we subsequently tested in a large first-person VR experiment and real-world application to understand behavioral performance effects. In this article, we found that a purposefully engineered VR environment, which had been designed with an evidence-based selection of instruction principles, significantly improved the human performance compared to both a baseline training with textual instructions and a basic VR training. Our results indicate that perception engineering learning with VR is possible and offers substantial opportunities to improve learning outcomes.