Student Primary School Teachers’ Attitude towards Virtual Reality in Primary School Education

Abstract

As the general interest in several fields of application for virtual reality (VR) technologies rises, we see efforts to establish VR as a medium for teaching in our early education system. In order to investigate the current attitudes of becoming primary school teachers towards the integration of VR in different primary school education topics, we conducted a survey among 277 student primary school teachers with different specializations. We assumed that the students’ interest would be connected to the experiences they made with VR. In addition, we hypothesized that the students’ interest would be positively correlated to the overall perceived benefit of the different subjects through the use of VR due to motivational reasons. We also assumed a connection between the previous experiences and the perceived benefit so that a participant who made previous experiences knows more about the applications and possibilities of VR. Furthermore, we hypothesized that the studied main subject influences the perceived benefit of particular primary school subjects so that a student with a certain main subject was more likely to see the possibilities of the application of a new medium in the corresponding primary school subject. This paper depicts the findings from the study, together with a discussion of possible effects on teacher training for primary school education. Furthermore, we discuss the given qualitative answers in terms of possible factors that influence learning processes and indicators that determine learning outcomes using the medium VR.