Identifying personal characteristics associated with teachers' stress is a longstanding research goal with important implications for practice. The present work revisits the effects of individual ...characteristics in terms of neuroticism, classroom management self-efficacy, and cognitive (reasoning) abilities on stress using virtual reality (VR). Relying on a sample of 56 German pre-service teachers (M
= 22.73, SD
= 4.93; 50.9% females), we capitalized on a VR classroom environment that allowed the integration of experimental control and authentic teaching situations, where pre-service teachers responded to the disruptive behaviors of the student avatars. We focused on stress responses in terms of psychological stress (self-reported stress) assessed after the VR session, and physiological stress (heart rate) assessed during the VR session. A total of 30 (26) participants was assigned to a condition with higher (lower) levels of disruptive student behavior, referred to as higher and lower complexity condition, respectively. Results from linear mixed-effects models revealed that neuroticism positively predicted psychological and physiological stress responses in pre-service teachers, whereas classroom management self-efficacy and cognitive (reasoning) abilities were not significantly related to stress responses. Level of complexity and the interaction between complexity and individual characteristics did not have an effect. This study underlines the value of VR as a tool for psychological research and contributes to existing knowledge on teacher characteristics and stress.
Although promoting student interest is a pivotal educational goal, student interest in science, and particularly in physics, declines substantially during secondary school. This study focused on the ...long‐term development of interest in physics at the lower secondary level (grades 5–7) and examined the role of teaching and teaching quality on the development. In particular, the study investigated the role of whether or not physics was taught in class and the role of perceived teaching quality for classes' interest trajectories. The results provide evidence of declining interest in physics from Grade 5 to 7, with stronger declines from Grade 5 to 6. Whether classes participated in physics teaching or not neither notably reduced nor increased interest in physics. However, several dimensions of perceived teaching quality (in particular, cognitive activation and cognitive support) mitigated the decline in interest.
Educational research assumes reflection on teaching examples to have positive effects on pre-service teachers' professional development. The role of teaching quality in such examples is unclear, ...however. In a field experiment with a pre-post-design, we taught “planning self-controlled learning” to 83 undergraduate pre-service physical education teachers and assigned them to three conditions: they either reflected on good teaching or problematic teaching examples or they compared both types of examples. We found that the comparison of examples supported their instruction planning more than reflecting good or problematic teaching examples only. In addition, comparing examples changed the pre-service teachers' beliefs.
•Pre-service teachers improved their instruction planning via reflections on teaching examples.•Comparisons of examples were superior to reflecting good or problematic examples only.•Reflections on teaching examples changed the pre-service teachers' beliefs.•Comparing examples led to the highest changes in pre-service teachers' beliefs.
Student teachers often struggle to keep track of everything that is happening in the classroom, and particularly to notice and respond when students cause disruptions. The complexity of the classroom ...environment is a potential contributing factor that has not been empirically tested. In this experimental study, we utilized a virtual reality (VR) classroom to examine whether classroom complexity affects the likelihood of student teachers noticing disruptions and how they react after noticing. Classroom complexity was operationalized as the number of disruptions and the existence of overlapping disruptions (multidimensionality) as well as the existence of parallel teaching tasks (simultaneity). Results showed that student teachers (n = 50) were less likely to notice the scripted disruptions, and also less likely to respond to the disruptions in a comprehensive and effortful manner when facing greater complexity. These results may have implications for both teacher training and the design of VR for training or research purpose. This study contributes to the field from two aspects: 1) it revealed how features of the classroom environment can affect student teachers’ noticing of and reaction to disruptions; and 2) it extends the functionality of the VR environment—from a teacher training tool to a testbed of fundamental classroom processes that are difficult to manipulate in real-life.
•Student teachers taught in a virtual reality (VR) classroom varied in complexity.•The complexity was manipulated by numbers of disruptions and type of teaching task.•Participants were less likely to notice disruptions when facing greater complexity.•Reactions to disruptions were also less comprehensive when facing greater complexity.
Teachers frequently express stress associated with teaching in large classrooms. Despite the time-honored tradition in teacher stress research of treating class size as a job-related stressor, the ...underlying premise that class size directly impacts teachers’ stress reactions remains untested. In this randomized controlled experiment targeted at preservice teachers, we utilized a standardized virtual reality (VR) classroom to examine whether class size (number of student avatars) directly affected physiological (heart rate) or psychological (subjective rating) stress reactions among 65 preservice teachers. Results from linear mixed-effects modeling (LMM) showed that class size significantly predicted both their physiological and psychological stress reactions in the simulated environment: Average heart rate and subjective stress ratings were both significantly higher in the large class size condition. Further investigations into the causes of this association has been proposed. These findings may contribute to a better understanding of the effects of classroom features on preservice teachers’ emotional experiences and well-being.
•Preservice teachers taught in a virtual reality (VR) classroom.•Class size was experimentally manipulated in the VR classroom.•Classes varied in size between 10 and 30 student avatars.•Teacher's stress was measured by heart rate and subjective ratings.•Heart rates and subjective ratings of stress were higher in the large class.
Video is a widely used medium in teacher training for situating student teachers in classroom scenarios. Although the emerging technology of virtual reality (VR) provides similar, and arguably more ...powerful, capabilities for immersing teachers in lifelike situations, its benefits and risks relative to video formats have received little attention in the research to date. The current study used a randomized pretest–posttest experimental design to examine the influence of a video‐ versus VR‐based task on changing situational interest and self‐efficacy in classroom management. Results from 49 student teachers revealed that the VR simulation led to higher increments in self‐reported triggered interest and self‐efficacy in classroom management, but also invoked higher extraneous cognitive load than a video viewing task. We discussed the implications of these results for pre‐service teacher education and the design of VR environments for professional training purposes.
Practitioner notes
What is already known about this topic
Video is a popular teacher training medium given its ability to display classroom situations.
Virtual reality (VR) also immerses users in lifelike situations and has gained popularity in recent years.
Situational interest and self‐efficacy in classroom management is vital for student teachers' professional development.
What this paper adds
VR outperforms video in promoting student teachers' triggered interest in classroom management.
Student teachers felt more efficacious in classroom management after participating in VR.
VR also invoked higher extraneous cognitive load than the video.
Implications for practice and/or policy
VR provides an authentic teacher training environment for classroom management.
The design of the VR training environment needs to ensure a low extraneous cognitive load.
Abstract Formative Assessment (FA) is a promising teaching practice for supporting students’ learning at school. However, implementing FA into teaching (mathematics) is challenging, effects of ...implementation of FA vary between empirical studies. Therefore, recent studies additionally consider instructional quality of teaching when analyzing effects of FA on students’ learning. The current exploratory study builds on this idea and highlights the added value of considering both generic and subject-specific instructional quality (GIQ and SSIQ) when analyzing effects of FA: Based on a re-analyzation of data from the research project Co 2 CA, 856 students from 39 mathematics classes of German middle schools took part in an intervention control-study aiming at implementing FA into mathematics education at school. On the student level, students’ mathematics achievement is assessed by standardized tests before and after the intervention. During the intervention, on the class level GIQ and SSIQ are assessed by low- and high-inference ratings of 72 video-taped lessons. GIQ is based on the model of Three Basic Dimensions, SSIQ is based on the normative idea that mathematics teaching should offer opportunities for a deep understanding of subject matter and for building up competencies. Multi-level regression analyses highlight different (interaction) effects of GIQ and SIQ on students’ performances. It becomes obvious: Considering GIQ and SIQ can have an added value for the better understanding of implementing FA into teaching (in mathematics education).
Curriculum materials explicitly designed to foster teacher learning represent a prominent route to professional development (PD) for teachers. However, it is unclear whether PD can be delivered ...successfully in the form of teacher self-study of curriculum materials, or whether it has to be scaffolded additionally by an expert. This study investigated effects of expert scaffolding in science-related PD for elementary school teachers with regard to proximal teacher outcomes (i.e., teacher beliefs and motivations), instructional quality, and student achievement. Moreover, mediation of PD effects through proximal teacher outcomes and teachers' instruction was examined. Seventy-three teachers and 1,039 students participated in the study. Expert scaffolding was implemented in a 3-tiered way: A first group (18 teachers) received PD with extensive scaffolding, a second group (18 teachers) was provided with reduced expert scaffolding, and a third group (18 teachers) received no expert scaffolding and was provided with the curriculum materials only (self-study group). A baseline group (19 teachers) did not participate in science-related PD and completed questionnaires on teacher outcomes only. Scaffolded PD was significantly superior to PD through self-study in terms of teacher beliefs and motivation, instructional quality, and student achievement. Contrary to our hypothesis, PD effects on student learning were mediated only to a small extent by teacher beliefs. However, teachers' instruction emerged as a substantial mediator of PD effects on student achievement. The results highlight the advantages of additional expert scaffolding in PD based on curriculum materials for the preparation of elementary school teachers for teaching science.
Pedagogical content knowledge forms the core of teachers' professional knowledge; it refers to knowledge about making subject matter accessible to students. Thus, the formation of pedagogical content ...knowledge constitutes a crucial issue for educational research and practice. We investigated the contributions of content knowledge and pedagogical knowledge to the formation of pedagogical content knowledge about fractions and fractional arithmetic in 6th grade mathematics in a between-participants study with 100 German preservice teachers. The three experimental and two control groups received 7 hr of intervention spread out over two days. We assessed participants' pedagogical content knowledge before intervention, between the two days, after intervention, as well as at 6-week follow-up. The control groups exclusively received instruction on either pedagogical knowledge or pedagogical content knowledge; each of the experimental groups embodied a specific hypothesis about the formation of pedagogical content knowledge. Providing support for a mechanism of amalgamation, a combination of instruction on content knowledge and pedagogical knowledge produced small but statistically significant growth in pedagogical content knowledge. Similarly, instruction on content knowledge exclusively was sufficient to cause small but statistically significant growth in pedagogical content knowledge. Prior instruction on content knowledge did not facilitate learning from instruction on pedagogical content knowledge. Nevertheless, direct instruction on pedagogical content knowledge caused medium and statistically significant growth in pedagogical content knowledge.
Educational Impact and Implications Statement
We conducted a brief experimental study-interventions lasted 7 hr-with German preservice elementary school teachers to investigate the relevance of content knowledge and pedagogical knowledge for the formation of pedagogical content knowledge about teaching fractions. A combination of instruction on content knowledge and pedagogical knowledge, as well as exclusive instruction on content knowledge, produced small gains in pedagogical content knowledge. In contrast, despite preservice teachers' limited content knowledge, direct instruction on pedagogical content knowledge produced medium gains in pedagogical content knowledge. For elementary mathematics, the results suggest that teacher education programs that deliver early and explicit instruction on pedagogical content knowledge are more efficient in fostering pedagogical content knowledge than programs that provide instruction of content knowledge and pedagogical knowledge consecutively or that exclusively provide instruction on content knowledge.
