Development of Virtual Reality Simulation to Improve Competences of Multicultural Education
다문화 교육 역량을 위한 가상현실 시뮬레이션 개발 연구
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In South Korea, the rising number of multicultural students presents both challenges and opportunities in educational settings. To effectively address the diverse needs of these students, Virtual Reality (VR) based training approaches are increasingly being integrated into teacher training programs. These programs leverage VR technology to enhance educators' empathy and awareness of diverse student backgrounds in a multicultural setting.
This study developed a VR-based training simulation that allows pre-service teachers to experience linguistic challenges from the perspective of multicultural students, thereby enhancing their empathy competency through perspective-taking. Twenty-four pre-service teachers participated in this study in which they conducted pre-and post-tests, used the VR simulation, and participated in a one-on-one interview. This study showed a significant enhancement in the empathy competency and multicultural attitudes of pre-service teachers. Furthermore, the VR experience facilitated closer and more meaningful connections with multicultural students, improving pre-service teachers' perceptions of their relationships with these students. Interviews highlighted why pre-service teachers' empathy significantly increased. By immersing in VR, they gained a deeper insight into the challenges faced by multicultural students, leading to heightened sensitivity and a commitment to adapt their teaching strategies upon entering real educational settings. This shift ensures a more inclusive and supportive educational environment for students from diverse backgrounds. Overall, the findings highlight the substantial benefits of using VR in teacher training, particularly in developing empathetic behaviors through perspective-taking, making it a valuable tool in modern educational strategies.
Introduction
Two 3D models and voices of Vietnamese students are provided based on the user's gender selection.
Tutorial
Even if participants are unfamiliar with VR controls, a preliminary tutorial on picking up objects, writing, looking around, and speaking is provided.
Tutorial
Participants will increase immersion by waving at the Vietnamese multicultural student model (their avatar) in the mirror and receiving a situational briefing in Vietnamese.
Listening Challenges
The class begins, and the task is to open the appropriate page of the textbook as instructed by the teacher. The teacher's voice is intentionally distorted according to certain phonetic rules to make it difficult to understand, allowing participants to experience the challenges that multicultural students face from the preparation stage of the lesson.
Listening Challenges
Participants experience the difficulty of understanding the teacher's questions and, in the process of responding with choices and voice, they encounter the challenges faced by multicultural students.
Listening Challenges
Scenarios include participants being laughed at by classmates due to poor pronunciation and limited listening skills.
Speaking Challenges
In a group discussion lesson setup with desks arranged for groups of four, users experience difficulty speaking while discussing with a neighboring student.
Speaking Challenges
When conversing with peers, participants' responses are processed by AI and transformed into stilted pronunciation.
Reading Challenges
Similar to the speaking challenges, the text in the PPT and textbook, although written in Korean, is phonetically distorted and rearranged to make it difficult for Korean participants to read. Users experience answering multiple-choice questions by reading the distorted textbook information and understanding the PPT questions.
Writing Challenges
Participants use a virtual pen to write answers directly on paper. Participants unfamiliar with VR operations experience significant difficulty in writing the letters, even if they are large, allowing them to understand the perspective of multicultural students who are not accustomed to writing in Korean.
Writing Challenges
Participants experience the reactions of surrounding students who laugh at their poor handwriting.
Writing Challenges
Participants are given the task of writing on the blackboard in front of the class and experiencing the scene where their writing is compared to that of another student who wrote neatly.
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조영환, 사운서, 황준오, 김혜준, 김수연(2023). 다문화 교육 역량을 위한 가상현실 시뮬레이션 개발 연구. 서울: 기초교육원-교수학습센터.
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