For over a decade, research has revealed concerns about pre-service course preparation to use technology effectively in the classroom (CEO Forum on Education and Technology, 2000) citing tutors’ technological skills deficit and/or fear of technological problems (Eifler et al., 2001), lack of access to new technologies or a mismatch between the tutor’s own teaching philosophy and that of their institution (Dexter & Riedel, 2003).  However recent research (Farrell and Marshall, 2020) discovered student teachers’ use of technology during Covid lockdown “upended the classic co-operating teacher/student teacher hierarchy” and positioned them as mentors or ‘learning leaders’ (DENI, 2016, Murphy, 2019) supporting the experienced teachers in schools.

Building on previous research focusing on ITE tutors’ use of technology in teaching (Austin et al., 2018; Roulston et al., 2019) and to model effective practice for professional development partnerships between ITE tutors and student teachers, this research aims to explore ITE tutors’ attitudes towards Virtual Reality (VR) in an ever-evolving technological environment and asks if VR could be a catalyst to reviewing the model of ITE programmes and offer a solution to ITe tutors’ challenges when managing their own technological and pedagogical development alongside preparing student teachers for the digital classroom.

Virtual reality is just one in a long history of technological innovations attempting to find its place in the digital classroom.  First developed in the 1960s, VR is increasingly used in education and training worldwide from teaching mathematical concepts (Pasqualotti & Freitas, 2002) to learning about thermodynamics (Coller & Shernoff, 2009) and even demonstrating vocational skills.

Cooper and Thong (2019) consider four key aspects of educational VR namely, experiencing, engagement, equitability, and everywhere. Using VR headsets the learners can assume different perspectives and gain an insight of the learning experience “by viewing through the eyes of their digital identity” (Cooper and Thong, 2019, p. 67) to engage with “the process of building mental models by … immers[ing] themselves in the phenomenon” being studied (Cooper and Thong, 2019, p. 67). While this immersive experience enhances engagement and time committed to the learning activity (Winn, Windschitl, Fruland and Lee, 2002) it also offers equity of opportunity as the headsets can be worn anytime and anywhere. Due to its pervasiveness VR has “the potential to totally transform teaching and learning (and daily life for many).” (Cooper and Thong, 2019, p. 70).

Despite their enthusiasm for VR as a tool for learning, Cooper and Thong (2019, p. 70) also acknowledge “teacher self efficacy, professional development opportunities, school leadership priorities, and the amount of access to VR in school” as potential inhibitors of the integration of technology into the classroom. Indeed they declare “the implementation of virtual and mixed realities may be a considerable pedagogical shift for many in-service teachers” (p.70) making it all the more important to introduce these technologies in ITE courses. A second impacting factor is the schools’ policies on the use of mobile phones in the classroom combined with society’s perception of the role of VR as an acceptable tool for learning (Cooper and Thong, 2019, p. 71).

Four ITE providers, two from Northern Ireland (QUB and Ulster) and two from Ireland (UCD and DCU) received funding for cross-border research to determine the capacity of ITE tutors to embed VR into their subject-specific modules of their Initial teacher education programmes as a precursor to providing online professional development training. This paper reports on the online survey completed by 50 ITE tutors pre-intervention and acts as a baseline measure of the tutors’ awareness, skills, affective engagement and readiness to adopt VR as a tool to support learning in the post-Covid environment. The research questions for this study included: • How do ITE tutors’ attitudes and skills to new technologies impact on student teachers’ technology adoption? • To what extent is VR accepted as a tool for teaching and learning by ITE tutors? • What are the professional development needs of ITE tutors to fully utilize VR in ITE? • What is the role of the ITE student in supporting the rollout of VR in education? This research study did not attempt to survey a representative sample of all ITE providers across the island of Ireland, as the goal was not to generalize the findings but to provide an in-depth study of key ITe providers. Over three-quarters of ITE tutors felt their influence on student teachers’ use of technology was strong or very strong with only 6% thinking they had limited influence. This was further supported by over half the respondents disagreeing that there was a disconnect between what the students learn about the use of technology in university-based sessions compared to what they enact in practice. With ITE tutors’ attitudes playing a key role in the uptake of technology by student teachers, it was imperative to determine ITE tutors’ attitudes to VR as a tool for teaching and learning.

When asked about VR technology, the majority of respondents (over 35%) had heard of VR but never used it either for entertainment, education or in real-life situations. Almost 60% of respondents believed that VR has a use in T&L in ITE programmes, with some tutors having a greater pedagogical insight in the potential of VR to transform the T&L process while other ITE tutors acknowledged the rich immersive experience saying VR was “the best alternative without face to face contact” for student teachers and “VR has the chance to bring learning to life before students go into the school environment. It can provide a better learning experience and allow greater exploration of concepts and approaches to teaching and learning”. In terms of VR’s role in ITE in the future, over 90% of ITE tutors agreed VR had a place in ITE programmes in the future. They envisaged a progression in VR usage within ITE: initially encouraging ITE students’ use of externally produced VR experience before supporting the student teachers’ creation of their own subject-based VR experiences and then collaborating with the ITE tutors to co-create ITE-based VR experiences. Thus exemplifying the “democratic pedagogical partnerships" (Farrell, 2021) between ITE students and ITE tutors as a model for professional development and a catalyst for revisiting the partnership in ITE programmes. As Darling-Hammond and Hyler (2020) noted, now is the time to re-think and reconsider the relative roles of the partners in ITE programmes. The disruptions caused by Covid has placed a spotlight on the in-built capacity and adaptability of ITE students to embrace change and work in ‘democratic pedagogical partnership’ with those perceived to be more experienced than themselves and perhaps VR presents the catalyst to re-invent key elements of ITE provision and re-evaluate the true meaning of partnership in ITE.

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