Cinematic VR in Preservice Teacher Education: An Evaluation of Classroom Interaction Scenarios

This study evaluated cinematic virtual reality (C-VR) classroom interaction scenarios for use in preservice teacher education. Final-phase preservice teachers ( N = 212) completed a standardised C-VR session with 16 psychologically demanding classroom scenarios and a post-test battery assessing affect, presence, cybersickness, perceived benefit, coping satisfaction and peer recommendation. Perceived-benefit and peer-recommendation ratings were concentrated in the upper half of their four-point scales, while subgroup differences by prior teaching-related and VR experience were small and statistically inconclusive. Presence was positively associated with positive affect. Coping satisfaction was positively related to positive affect and negatively related to negative affect. Cybersickness scores were concentrated towards the lower part of the theoretical scale range although higher cybersickness was associated with higher negative affect and less favourable appraisals of the format. Overall, the findings indicate favourable post-session appraisals of C-VR classroom scenarios and identify cybersickness as an implementation-relevant constraint while not establishing instructional effectiveness or learning gains.