iVR in the Primary School Classroom: Pre-Service Teachers’ Experiences, Insights and Motivation

Abstract

Immersive virtual reality (iVR) educational applications enable students to interact with virtual environments through VR headsets and dedicated software, offering powerful opportunities for experiential exploration and engagement. The effective utilization of iVR demands evidence-based instructional design, supportive school conditions, and technological adequacy of devices and content. Literature worldwide highlights that teachers’ insights and motivation for using iVR technology are important for achieving any expected educational value. The study discusses the experiences, insights and motivation of pre-service primary school teachers for the pedagogical use and values, benefits and challenges of the utilization of iVR applications in the classroom. Factors such as Attention, Relevance, Confidence, and Satisfaction while being involved in an immersive experience and the perception of iVR as a learning object in terms of Learning support, Quality of the application and Engagement, are under investigation. Twenty-one pre-service teachers participated in an educational intervention and their responses to the research tools revealed moderate to high values for Personal Propensity for Innovation, Attention, Relevance, Confidence, relatively moderate values for Conditions of Facilitation and high values for Satisfaction while being involved in an immersive experience, Learning support, Quality of the application and Engagement.