How virtual reality, augmented reality and mixed reality facilitate teacher education: A systematic review

BackgroundVirtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) and mixed reality (MR) have sparked recently in improving the effectiveness of teacher education. However, there is a lack of review regarding the utilisation of these technologies in this field. These three technologies, namely VR, AR and MR, can be collectively referred to as extended reality (XR) (as mentioned in reference Tang et al., 2022).ObjectivesRemarkably, the utilisation of XR-based technologies in teacher education needs to be explored. Moreover, research questions related to the training objectives, methodological features, and the effects of XR-based teacher education remain unanswered.MethodsTo this end, the present study conducted a systematic review to analyse 52 articles from six databases (including Web of Science, Scopus, IEEE Xplore, ERIC, ScienceDirect, and ACM Digital Library).ResultsThe results indicate that XR technologies have been primarily used to train teachers' procedural knowledge, for instance, classroom management. Furthermore, most studies have primarily focused on pre-service teachers (PSTs) rather than in-service teachers and utilised small sample sizes, with VR emerging as the most frequently employed tool. Finally, the majority of the studies reported that XR-based training affected teachers positively.ConclusionsIt urges researchers and developers to consider theory-driven training design, which increases the potential to better understand what features of XR promote in-service teachers' and PSTs' learning and how they do so. This article additionally conducts a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis of XR-based teacher education to offer more insightful recommendations and foster further discussion. What is already known about this topicImplications for practice and/or policy Numerous empirical studies have shown the great potential of virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) and mixed reality (MR) technologies utilised in teacher education. This rapidly growing field calls upon a synthesis of the use of extended reality (XR) technologies in teacher education.What this paper adds Presents a systematic review of XR-based teacher education, which provides a thorough overview of how previous research utilised XR technologies to promote teacher education. Conducted a SWOT analysis and pointed out the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of XR-based teacher education.A depth of understanding of previous research on this topic may enable educators to better plan and promote teacher education programs. It can guide researchers to optimise the multisensory immersion and interactivity of the virtual systems and platforms and develop suitable materials and tasks to be used in such learning environments.