Complexity and change as the driving forces of European educational research and practice continue to challenge teacher educators to develop innovative teaching and learning methods (OECD, 2020). However, to enhance pre-service teachers' learning, it is necessary to develop a more profound understanding of how innovative methods relate to theories of learning and how they can be implemented in teacher education to stimulate critical reflection and profound students’ learning.  

This paper investigates innovative teaching and learning methods within teacher education through Virtual Reality (VR) simulation as a tool for learning for students. In several vocational education and training programs, simulations are commonly employed as a tool for learning. At Inn University, we have developed an advanced VR simulation for pre-service teachers, engaging them in work-related situations. The simulation is designed as a conversation between a teacher (the pre-service teacher) and a pupil with a parent. The teacher leads the conversation and responds to statements from the characters (pupil and the parent) in a pre-recorded simulation (for more details, see Faldet et al., 2021). The VR simulation aims to give pre-service teachers experiences with conversations with pupils and parents, an activity that in-service teachers in Norwegian schools are obligated to perform (Ministry of Education, 2021). However, it is seldom practiced and rehearsed as part of their teacher education (Hanssen & Østrem, 2007).

Using simulation aims to bridge the gap between theory and practice and offer students to practice or learn something in an authentic context without the risks or cost of doing it in reality (Rall & Dieckmann, 2005). Simulations are well known within education and training in, for example, aviation and nursing (see, for instance, Hyland & Hawkins, 2009; Nehring & Lashley, 2010). Simulation offers valuable space for observations and to learn from each other during and after the simulation and allows the pre-service teachers to repeatedly experience the same conversation and reflect on the choices made with peers and professors. The debriefing is considered an essential part of the simulation to enhance students learning. Through debriefing, students receive support and feedback on their performance from the professors and fellow students, contributing to a greater understanding of their actions (Stalheim & Nordkvelle, 2019).

Sociocultural perspectives on learning provide an important counterbalance to cognitivist accounts that tend to overlook the relationship between the digital and the social. Within a cognitive-behavioral frame of reference, the digital is often “depicted as unitary, or free-standing, and in some way detached from the social, cultural and material conditions of use” (Burnett & Merchant, 2020). Further, sociocultural perspectives highlight how digital devices and technologies themselves make little difference regarding progress and development in education. Instead, it is what teachers and learners do with the technologies that matter. On this background, the paper draws on a sociocultural perspective applying a Vygotskyan perspective on learning (1962, 1978, 1987). In line with Vygotsky’s thinking, we acknowledge that pre-service teachers should be seen as active participants in their learning process and that their perspectives and reflections should be recognized as making significant contributions to the conversation. Elaborating on the VR simulation from this perspective, we are interested in how the simulation allows pre-service teachers to play the role of legitimate subjects rather than objects equipped with pre-determined knowledge. Instead of perceiving learning as an activity by which learners internalize knowledge as information discovered and transmitted by others, the learner is seen as an active participant who contributes to constructing knowledge within a community of learners. Thus, our research question is: How do pre-service teachers reflect on their own learning experience when participating in a VR simulation? 

The study has a qualitative research approach with a phenomenological perspective. After completing the learning session with VR simulation, focus group interviews with pre-service teachers were used as a research method. Focus group interviews aim to illuminate a topic in a social interaction where the informants can inspire each other to comment on each other's contributions (Morgan, 1990). In this way, the interviews are characterized by a social interaction that brings out the group's overall meaning, at the same time as the conversation can make differences within the group clear. The method is well suited for creating data or insights that would be difficult to produce without the dynamics of the group (Krueger, 1994). The VR simulation was conducted as a pilot during the spring of 2021 with pre-service teachers in their second year in teacher education. During fall 2021, minor adjustments were made in the teaching design due to the results from the pilot before it was launched in full scale for fourth-year students. Approximately 140 participated in the full-scale VR simulation. Thus, we have two data collection points: • Spring 2021, 2nd-year students, three focus-group interviews with 4, 3, and 3 participants. Each interview lasted app. 30 minutes • Fall 2021, 4th-year students, one focus-group interview with 4 participants. The interview lasted app. 60 minutes. The focus group interviews were led by two moderators who are both researchers. The moderator's task is to lead and keep focus in the interview and encourage discussion between the participants. Interviews were semi-structured, and questions regarding experience during the teaching and VR simulation were at the core. Each student was allowed individual time to answer the questions, whereby a discussion between the students came as a natural follow-up as they responded to each other's replies. All interviews were transcribed and coded by our research team. The analysis of the data material follows Braun and Clarke's (2006) six-step thematic content analysis.

Our preliminary results show that the informants expressed feeling nervous beforehand but highlighted other feelings throughout the experience as well, such as frustration, awareness of body language, mastering a challenging task, such as “ the father was more aggressive [in the simulation] I felt I lost a bit of control”. Further, the informants highlighted that the VR simulation felt realistic, and it was easy to feel immersed in the situation. From this, we learned that emotions play a vital role when doing VR simulation and, surprisingly, are at the core of the experience. Several informants emphasised that it was vital to feel secure during the simulation and afterward when reflecting and discussing their performance. It was a joint agreement for the usefulness of this session, being both an observer and an active participant, and they felt their views were shifting, expressing the need for a situated and shared experience to reflect on the same level as the others. Moreover, the informants underpinned simulation as a valuable experience for trying out different approaches, discussing what they called failures, learning from them, adjusting their approach, and trying again without causing anybody harm. The early analysis shows that VR simulation offers a practical and situated learning situation that facilitates shared experiences and a point of departure for a conversation in groups on a topic introduced by the professor. We also found that a Vygotskian approach to learning through VR simulation is valuable for students' outcomes and learning processes. Especially do we see that activities that foster social engagement and imitations framed as internalisation are beneficial for students' cognitive dispositions. It is, however, necessary to have clear aims and a pedagogical foundation for the learning session.

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