An innovative approach for teacher students to learn about bullying via an immersive Virtual Reality bullying experience

• In Event: Innovations in Nordic Teacher Education: Examples of integrating Digital Technologies for innovations

Abstract

Even though in general Swedish pupils have a high level of digital competence (Internetstiftelsen, 2019), a national initiative for a rapid and systematic digitalization of the educational system has been introduced in Sweden. In this context, teacher education is regarded as being of strategic importance for preparing student teachers to teach in a highly digitalized society (Sveriges Kommuner och Landsting, 2019). Here, innovative initiative is important for helping student teachers to develop professional digital competence (Lund, Furberg, Bakken & Engelien, 2014). One example of an innovative initiative is the development of Digital Learning Labs (DLL) that are closely connected to teacher education and offer student teachers and experienced teachers opportunities to explore digital technologies. At the University of Gävle (Sweden), the Digital Learning Lab (2020) offers a number of state of the art technologies, such as robots for programming, media-production and technologies for virtual and augmented realities (VR and AR). In research-based explorative studies, teachers and student teachers elaborate on technologies such as VR and AR (Author 1, Author 2, Colleague, (2020). This way, their views becomes involved in principled innovation processes to enact the technology in the best way possible for teaching and learning.

The following research questions are posed:
(a) How do teacher students experience an immersive Virtual Reality bullying experience and how can these experiences be understood?
(b) What kind of challenges and opportunities do student teachers address when discussing the potential pedagogical use of the bullying experience in K-12 schools?
(c) Based on their VR-bullying experience, how to they reason about the opportunities and challenges of using immersive VR-technologies and experiences in K-12 educational settings?
In this study, 18 student teachers (of years 7-12) were exposed to a 3-minute long VR-experience of being bullied by multiple ‘classmates’. The students experienced the VR-simulation with headphones in groups of 4-6. Their experiences were observed and afterwards four focus group interviews were carried out with 3-4 students per group. The interviews lasted between 22-32 minutes and were transcribed and analysed. The results show that the students experienced the VR-bullying situation as immersive, albeit to a varying degree. The three students who least identified themselves as victims of bullying in the VR-experience had no personal experience of being bullied. Students who to a great extent became immersed and identified themselves as victims of bullying had in two cases personal experience of being bullied. The others contributed the feeling of immersion to the VR-technology and to the existing frames of reference that allowed them to imagine what it could feel like. In the paper, issues relating to their experiences, learning and reflections are discussed, as are the challenges and opportunities of using VR in different subjects.
In general, the bullying VR-experience was recognized as a powerful tool for framing both the teaching and the discussions about bullying, values, relations and codes of conduct. However, the students also raised concerns about the powerful emotions and reactions that could arise and how they might best be dealt with.

Authors

• Göran Fransson, University of Gävle

• Jörgen Holmberg, University of Gävle