Enhancing pre-service teachers' awareness to pupils' test-anxiety with 3D immersive simulation

This study investigated whether participating in a 3D immersive virtual reality world simulating the experience of test-anxiety would affect preservice teachers' awareness to the phenomenon. Ninety subjects participated in this study, and were divided into three groups. The experimental group experienced a 3D immersive simulation which made tangible the cognitive aspect of anxiety. One control group watched a TV film on the subject of testanxiety, while the second control group read statements by pupils who suffer from that syndrome. The level of awareness was tested four times: two weeks before the 3D experience, one week before it, immediately after the experience, and two weeks thereafter. At each stage, the subjects filled out an Awareness of Test Anxiety Questionnaire (ATAQ), which was composed expressly for this study. The research results demonstrate that virtual reality technology is effective in raising the level of awareness of test-anxiety. Even though it is difficult to express abstract ideas in concrete terms, it appears that this technology was more successful in making clear, understandable, and tangible the cognitive aspect of test-anxiety than were the methods tested in the two control groups.