Virtual Reality: a Tool for Preservice Science Teachers to Put Theory into Practice

Abstract

The purpose of the present study was to investigate, compare, and characterize interactive VR-based preservice science teacher clinical teaching environments with those of real-life teaching environments. Fifty-four college-aged students were assigned randomly to either real-life conditions or VR conditions. The main effect of the VR condition versus real-life was not statistically significant in terms of the retrospective engagement survey, psychological measures, and composite neuroimaging. This finding suggests that use of VR, in terms of the realism of the environment for the preservice science teachers allowed them to learn from modeled real-life situations for transfer of skills from VR to classroom use.