Designing immersive virtual training environments for experiential learning

Abstract

Virtual reality (VR) is among the key and most promising emerging technologies in the field of education. The current paper aims to present an innovative VR based approach for teacher education. The development of the VR application followed a full design cycle, with active involvement of education experts during the whole development process. The evaluation results indicate a positive impact of the VR intervention on the cultivation of empathy skills. Moreover, the results are statistically significant related to other parameters under investigation, including the sense of presence, embodiment and user’s emotional experiences.