Virtual Reality in Preservice Teacher Education: Core Features, Advantages and Effects

This article presents a review of the research into the use of virtual reality (VR) for preservice teacher education. In addition to generating a description of the nature of VR, the analysis of the 24 included studies showed that the use of VR in preservice teacher education can have several benefits for student teachers and their educators, such as practicing professional competence in safe and diverse VR environments, the possibility of monitoring student development with VR, the use of learning environments that would not be accessible, and distance education for student teachers when schools for internships are located too far away from a teacher training institute. Although research into the effects of the use of VR in preservice teacher education is still limited, the results thus far indicate positive effects on student teachers’ motivation, self-efficacy, and various classes of teacher skills. We reflect on the challenges with respect to designing VR environments for preservice teacher education and on studying VR effects on teaching quality and student learning outcomes.