To support professional competence development in teacher education, learning environments should allow learners to engage with professional tasks. It is crucial for knowledge and skill transfer in such learning environments to real-life context that preservice teachers perceive the task as authentic. However, due to a lack of prior knowledge,…

Simulation-based learning provides students with unique opportunities to develop key procedural and teamwork skills in close-to-authentic physical learning and training environments. Yet, assessing students' performance in such situations can be challenging and mentally exhausting for teachers. Multimodal learning analytics can support the…

A newly-developed online laboratory experiment in immersive virtual reality (VR) is used for process engineering students. A digital twin (DT) of a jet pump was realised using the game engine Unreal Engine 4. The chance was taken for an instructional redesign deviating from the conventional cookbook-experiment to better integrate the changing…

Traditional teaching methods like lectures can hinder the integration of theoretical knowledge and practical skills in higher education. To address this challenge, digital simulation games (DSGs) offer promising solutions through immersive and interactive learning experiences. Research shows that DSGs can motivate learners, enhance subject…

For language learners situated in contexts where there is limited exposure to the target language, an authentic learning environment is important. Virtual Reality (VR) has been increasingly used in education to simulate realistic scenarios; however, little is known about whether VR can enhance the nature of authentic learning for learners of…

While traditional English as a foreign language (EFL) classrooms often lack context and authenticity, immersive virtual reality (iVR) provides a valuable alternative opportunity to practice and acquire the target language in a replica of the real world. The present study used iVR ("Immerse") for communicative tasks and investigated how…

Animal dissections have long been central to anatomy and physiology education, despite their costs, safety issues, and ethical concerns. Alternatives like computer-based simulations and synthetic models often fail to replicate the authentic experience of live dissections. Virtual reality (VR) offers an immersive, interactive alternative that…

Context: Dealing with professional complexity has been of scientific interest in the research field of vocational education and training for decades. So far, there is a lack of empirical evidence regarding how professional complexity finds its way into learning processes in VET. A common option is to model complexity through authentic simulations…

Virtual Reality (VR) has been widely adopted in educational research; however, its implementation in the classroom is still not as well known as in the research field. In other words, there is a gap between researchers and practitioners regarding the pedagogical issue. This study aimed to explore how VR could be applied in science classrooms using…

Clinical simulation is recognised as an authentic approach that relies on practice through simulations of real situations. The development of scenarios for evidence-based simulations is an important stage in planning simulations. Yet, in teacher education there is a paucity of research on the subject of simulation scenarios. The goal of the…

Conducting conversations with students' parents is an important and constant part of teachers' professional practice. Teacher education programmes are responsible for preparing the foundations for teacher-parent cooperation; however, throughout the training, there are few opportunities for preservice teachers (PSTs) to practice interacting with…

Sensemaking is an important way of learning and engaging in science. Research has shown that sensemaking activities, such as questioning, hypothesizing, and model building, are pivotal in developing critical thinking and problem-solving skills in science education. This paper investigates the role of computational simulations in facilitating…

Background: Research suggests that head-mounted displays (HMD) can spark situational interest when they are used to provide science learning experiences that are not possible in traditional classroom settings. However, few studies have investigated the lasting effects of using HMDs in an authentic instructional intervention. Objectives: We…

Advances in technology have significantly enhanced the quality of mixed-reality simulations, incorporating both real and virtual aspects. Mixed-reality simulations have been used to develop individual knowledge, skills and abilities in higher education; however, the use of such simulations to introduce authentic learning activities into higher…

Purpose: This paper aims to examine three distinct aspects of authenticity that pre-service teachers (PSTs) experience when they engage with virtual classroom environments to develop their content-intensive instructional practice -- task authenticity, student avatar authenticity and performance authenticity -- and their perceptions about the…