Virtual Reality in Teacher Education From 2010 to 2020: A Review of Program Implementation, Intended Outcomes, and Effectiveness Measures

Abstract

Virtual reality (VR) is a technology that recreates realistic scenarios in a controllable virtual environment. VR has been widely adopted in professional training of situational, adaptive, and complex skills within various occupations, yet the field of teacher education has only just started to utilize this technology in the recent decade. In order to advance the application of VR in teacher education, the current review presents a synopsis of state-of-the-art literature from 2010 to 2020. We conducted a review regarding the details of program implementation (e.g., VR system and simulated situations), intended outcomes (e.g., factual/conceptual or procedural knowledge), and measures used to evaluate the effectiveness of teacher education programs that implemented various VR systems. Based on the review of 46 empirical studies, we found that 1) VR-based training programs mostly targeted pre-service teachers, and that they most frequently simulated instructional situations; 2) VR has been used most often for fostering procedural knowledge; 3) the majority of studies reported positive results regarding the intended outcomes and the effectiveness of VR has been measured mostly by teachers’ self-reports. We also identified areas of improvement and future directions for the application of VR in teacher education and teacher education research.

Comparing video and virtual reality as tools for fostering interest and self‐efficacy in classroom management: Results of a pre‐registered experiment

“…A simulated classroom in VR allows teachers to experience and interact with classroom events firsthand instead of watching videos that provide at best a “secondhand experience” (Miller & Zhou, 2007, p. 322). As fully immersive VR headsets have become more widely available in recent years (Lamb & Etopio, 2020), researchers and teacher educators are increasingly utilizing this technology for training purposes (for a review, see Huang, Richter, Kleickmann, & Richter, 2021).…”

“…Due to its capacity to depict an authentic and interactive environment that closely resembles actual scenarios, VR has been widely employed in the training of professionals who must operate in dynamic and complex situations (Howard et al, 2021), such as pilots (Abich et al, 2021) and surgeons (Mao et al, 2021). According to a recent review covering 2010 to 2020 (Huang, Richter, Kleickmann, & Richter, 2021), VR technology has also been used for teacher training in areas including noticing and reacting to misbehaviours (eg, Chen, 2022), subject‐specific pedagogy (Ely et al, 2018) and communicative skills (eg, Spencer et al, 2019) among other competencies (eg, Artun et al, 2020; Stavroulia & Lanitis, 2020). These studies consistently reported positive results regarding the intended outcomes, demonstrating the potential merits of VR in teacher education.…”

How virtual reality, augmented reality and mixed reality facilitate teacher education: A systematic review

“…Second, regarding VR applications in teacher education, several studies conducted in‐depth reviews of this topic from different or even overlapping perspectives (e.g., Billingsley et al, 2019; Huang et al, 2023a; McGarr, 2020). For instance, Billingsley et al (2019) examined eight studies using immersive VR in PST training programs.…”

“…It was found that these types of technologies can enrich and improve the learning of future teachers, but research in this area is still greatly lacking. Huang et al (2023a) reviewed 46 studies dedicated to the application of VR in teacher education published from 2010 to 2020. This review study focused on investigating the details of program implementation (e.g., VR system and simulated situations), intended outcomes (e.g., factual/conceptual or procedural knowledge), and measures used to evaluate the effectiveness of programs.…”

“…Given the available review research (e.g., Billingsley et al, 2019; Huang et al, 2023a), it can be summarised that the employment of VR technology in teacher education has been reviewed mostly from three aspects including training objectives, methodological features, and the evaluation of the effects, which constructs the framework of the current study. As this is a fast‐growing field and technologies iterate rapidly, new trends and characteristics in utilising XR technologies to train teachers may emerge.…”