Adopting an immersive virtual reality system to enhance pre-service teachers’ communicative competence

The use of virtual simulations is increasingly seen as an opportunity to provide safe training environments. It could provide pre-service teachers with unique opportunities to experience examples of classroom life in a controlled and structured. However, some authors pointed that usability tests are necessary to achieve effective e-learning systems. This paper presents the usability testing of Didascalia Virtual-ClassRoom, an immersive virtual reality system to enhance preservice Secondary school teachers’ communicative competence in classroom climate management. Using the technology acceptance model, we analyzed the responses of 62 users (schoolteachers, counselors and preservice teachers) from Madrid and Barcelona that participated on the experiment. Qualitatively, participants discussed perceived usefulness, as well as positive and negative emotional reactions, which may act as additional facilitators and inhibitors to technology adoption. Based on our findings, we considered that this tool could provide a safe scenario to implement the much-needed practical training, in which preservice teachers can experiment and reflect on their ability to manage the classroom climate. Improvements to the tool are suggested to optimize its functionality, as well as some ideas for its introduction in preservice teacher training.