Conference Agenda

Augmented Reality (AR) superimposes virtual objects to the physical environment, enabling augmented experiences to users. AR has been applied to a variety of fields including education offering immersive, authentic, and meaningful learning experiences to students. Research reports that AR, if it is applied appropriately, can have a positive impact on educational settings. AR enables visualisation of abstract concepts, enhances long-term retention, increases learning motivation and engagement and can improve learning achievement (Akçayır, & Akçayır, 2017; Garzón, Pavón, & Baldiris, 2019). Immersive technologies have the potential to transform education by enabling learning experiences that otherwise are inaccessible, expensive, or even dangerous (Jesionkowska, Wild, & Deval, 2020). According to the “VR/AR Industrial Coalition: strategic paper” published be the European commission (2022), AR/VR is very much related to the development of pupils and students, and with its potential as a tool for remote learning, it can support education in remote and rural areas, improving access to education. As declared in the Future of Education Briefing Notes (UN Secretary-General, 2022) released during the Transforming Education Summit 2022, in order for the digital transformation of education to happen, teachers should harness the power of technology and be able to be become micro-curriculum designers and content developers. While AR can offer new opportunities and transform education, its use in classrooms is rather limited. There are numerous challenges associated with the integration of AR in education. Two of these challenges are the lack of teachers’ digital skills to use AR in the classroom (Nikou, Perifanou, Economides, 2022) and the lack of experience in employing AR in the learning design (Ibáñez & Delgado-Kloos, 2018). Teacher education should build the technological and instructional design capacity of preservice teachers enabling them to “be at the frontlines of helping students to navigate their changing world in contextually relevant and age-appropriate way” (UN Secretary-General, 2022). However, while AR technology has come popular in areas such as mathematics and science, few teachers use this technology in science classes (Perifanou, Econmides & Nikou, 2023) and little research exists on how to introduce and integrate AR with specific pedagogical methods to teach science (Arici et al 2019). The current study investigates the use of AR in a Design-Based Learning (DBL) approach to teach Physics in preservice teachers’ education. The study is aiming also at exploring preservice teachers’ views about the integration of AR in Physics teaching. Design-Based Learning is a student-based learning approach, grounded in constructionism that requires students to use their theoretical knowledge to develop an artifact or a solution to a real-life problem (Ariff, & Nurulaini, 2022; Han & Bhattacharya, 2001). The rationale of choosing the DBL approach is because it promotes critical thinking and creativity (Gómez Puente, van Eijck, & Jochems, 2013) and it is appropriate for science teaching (Ibáñez & Delgado-Kloos, 2018). The DBL process typically consists of four main phases: problem understanding, information gathering, solution generation, and evaluation (Puntambekar & Kolodner, 2005). The current study is aiming to investigate the use of AR in a design-based learning approach to teach Physics to pre-service teachers. Specifically, the study aims to answer the following questions:

1. How Design-Based Learning Augmented Reality can be deployed in preservice teachers’ Physics education?
2. What are preservice teachers’ views about Design-Based Learning Augmented Reality in teaching Physics?

The paper explores the possibilities of a simulated virtual reality (VR) environment to support novice teachers in developing competencies for coping with stressful situations. The topic is part of dissertation research that focuses on 1) the stress management strategies of novice teachers in a VR training environment; 2) the design and evaluation of pedagogical VR simulations in an adaptive learning platform. The main research question is: What is the possibility of virtual reality in preparing novice teachers to cope with stressful situations?
Some fields of study for teacher preparation have limited opportunities to prepare for unexpected situations and social and other classroom-specificities (Butler & Monda-Amaya, 2016). Virtual simulated environments can address the need for practice in preparing novice and experienced teachers and provide different variations of learning environments, instant feedback, metrics (which are not obtainable in a real classroom), and a safe space for preparation (Dieker et al., 2015; Lamb & Etopio, 2020; McGarr, 2020)
Social, political, economic and accelerating technological challenges (e.g. distance education in times of pandemic or social inclusion of children from Ukraine in Czech schools) brings increased demands on novice teachers. They are a professional group at risk of stress loads leading to leaving the profession or burnout.
Through the presented research, we aim to contribute by engaging VR technology to train potential stressful teaching situations. A secondary aim of the research is to explore the potential for practising interactions in VR between the teacher and networks of support actors. These include the teaching assistant, the school psychologist, the social and special educator, the school prevention methodologist or the tandem teacher.
VR simulations are used in many different industries. A coherent methodology for implementing this technology in schools still needs to be included in a pedagogical context. Faculties educating teachers would get the opportunity of repeated training in a safe environment and the spectrum of social scenarios (various pedagogical situations) that VR technology offers. As disseminators of knowledge, teachers are vital actors in transferring work with this technology. The opportunity to reinforce (and simultaneously evaluate) novice teachers coping strategies in simulations might promote well-being and resilience (Ungar & Theron, 2020).
In the presented research, we understand VR as the illusion of being present in a digitally generated learning environment where we can act realistically and experience different situations (Radianti, et al. 2020). We do not understand the VR experience as a substitute for the real classroom but rather as an experience that can be integrated into the curriculum to support future teachers' development concerning developing different pedagogical strategies. It can also provide new practice opportunities.
VR simulations will provide a large amount of multidisciplinary data and metrics that will enhance humanities-oriented research, particularly on the negotiation strategies of educators and other educational support actors.
Furthermore, the research aims at a methodological concept of VR education, which needs to be noticed for the widespread dissemination of an attractive form of education through VR technology in schools (still significantly underrepresented in the Czech Republic). The design of scenarios in education will promote social-emotional learning.
The critical approaches to embracing VR in education are experimentalism, constructivism, somatic epistemology and cognitivism. The research pursues contemporary challenges, both methodological and technological (what and how features to incorporate into immersive VR to implement to make the simulation believable; e.g., eye contact of avatars using eye visualization - Eyetracking), as well as domain-oriented (what types of scenarios to create)

Technological developments are influencing the evolution of learning styles from verbal to visual to virtual (Sholihin et al., 2020). This also applies to the resolution of moral dilemmas as a decision-making paradox without unambiguously acceptable or preferable options (Niforatos et al., 2020) in virtual reality (VR).

There are conflicting research results on virtual reality (VR) in the context of learning. On the one hand, the results of several studies show that the use of VR makes learning motivating, interesting and increases learning effectiveness (Makransky, Bonde, et al., 2016; Makransky, Thisgaard, & Gadegaard, 2016; Thisgaard & Makransky, 2017), increases ethical efficacy by improving self-efficacy (Ding et al., 2020), and ultimately influences ethical behaviour (Huang & Lin, 2019; Fischbach, 2015).

The advantages of VR include, firstly, the acquisition of multiple experiences in action, including from another person's perspective, where moral judgements may depend not on the outcome but rather on the action involved in achieving the outcome (Slater et al., 2020). Second, in VR-based learning environments, the learning experience is achieved by providing a virtual environment that is similar to real-life situations (Huang, Rauch, & Liaw, 2010; Yusoff et al., 2011), thus VR allows participants to become an active part/subject of the learning process (Yusoff et al., 2011). Third, in addition to providing an experience, VR can provide operational feedback: using VR, it is possible to model situations with the aim of learning how people might behave in specific circumstances, rather than how they think/predict they might behave in practice, as they would in response to a questionnaire (Skulmovskis et al., 2014). VR may have a positive impact on academic achievement, as research shows that students with VR-based and traditional learning experiences have higher achievement compared to students with only traditional learning experiences (Goetz, 2014).

In addition, learners' emotional reactions to learning can also have a significant impact on academic achievement (Pekrun, 2016), and, when using VR to solve a moral dilemma, study participants showed higher anxiety and stress (Terbeck, 2001) and had an increased heart rate compared to those in the paper-based experiment, possibly indicating greater emotional engagement (Francis et al., 2016).

The importance of moral education at school is widely recognized (OECD, 2021; UNESCO, 2021). One of the objectives of the Latvian Council of Science project "Effectiveness research of an online curriculum for virtue education in Latvian educational institutions (from grades 1 to 12) - eTAP+" is the development, validation, and improvement of a methodology for using a VR solution for discussing moral dilemmas. In cooperation with a VR company (Vividly) and an upper secondary education school, a moral dilemma for secondary school students on career choice was developed.

This study presents the preliminary results of the piloting of a VR solution for discussing moral dilemmas in upper secondary education level, addressing two research questions:

-What are the benefits and challenges of using VR in the context of moral dilemmas?

-What pedagogical conditions contribute to a successful moral learning experience using VR in the context of moral dilemmas?

The research is based on the theory of the “relational-self-of-virtue” (Fernández González, 2019a, 2019b), which considers four components in the development of a moral self: 1) understanding of character growth; 2) commitment to virtue growth; 3) practical involvement in virtuous behaviour; and 4) personal and social recognition/identity. Those four components were operationalized in the structure of the research addressing the benefits, challenges, and pedagogical conditions of a successful moral learning experience using VR in the context of moral dilemmas.