Virtual Reality in Teacher Education: Insights from Pre-Service Teachers in Resource-limited Regions

Bismark Nyaaba Akanzire; Macharious Nabang; Matthew Nyaaba

REVIEW 3 major objections 6 minor 16 references

Virtual Reality in Teacher Education: Insights from Pre-Service Teachers in Resource-limited Regions

T0 review · 3 major / 6 minor · reviewed 2026-08-12 · deepseek-v4-flash

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Pith's one-line read Pre-service teachers in Ghana see VR as a valuable teaching tool after one screen-based VR lesson.

desk verdict A useful local perception study undermined by a construct-validity gap: participants never wore headsets, yet the abstract credits immersive VR. read the letter →

arxiv 2411.10225 v2 pith:JNMVRTYK submitted 2024-11-15 cs.CY

Matthew Nyaaba , Bismark Nyaaba Akanzire , Macharious Nabang This is my paper · ORCID

classification cs.CY

keywords virtualrealityteachereducationpre-serviceteachersGhanaresource-limitedsettingexperientiallearningqualitativecasestudy

verification ladder T0 review T1 audit T2 compute T3 formal

The pith

A machine-rendered reading of the paper's core claim, the machinery that carries it, and where it could break.

The reading

This paper seeks to establish that pre-service teachers in a resource-limited region, Ghana, hold positive perceptions of virtual reality for teacher education after a single exposure to a VR-facilitated lesson. Drawing on focus-group discussions and reflective journals from 36 Ghanaian teacher trainees, the authors report that participants saw VR as engaging, interactive, and supportive of experiential learning, and as a potential alternative to synchronous online learning because it can simulate in-person presentations. Participants also said VR could reduce the need for expensive field trips, while cautioning that poor internet, lack of equipment, and insufficient training are obstacles to integration. If these perceptions are accurate, they give institutions and policymakers a reason to invest in modest VR infrastructure and training rather than dismissing VR as irrelevant to low-resource classrooms.

What carries the argument

The central object is the 'Portal Screen' arrangement: a presenter in a VR environment had the environment projected onto a screen, letting 36 participants without headsets view and interact in real time. This is what generated all the perceptions the study analyzes. The analysis then uses thematic coding of focus-group discussions and reflective journals, organizing responses into themes such as knowledge enhancement, enjoyment, engagement relative to traditional methods, and infrastructure challenges.

What would settle it

A controlled comparison in a similar Ghanaian college, where one group experiences the same lesson through the screen-projection Portal Screen and another through actual VR headsets, would settle the matter: if perception scores do not differ, or if the screen projection scores no better than a plain two-dimensional video, the conclusion that the positive perceptions were specifically about VR's immersive qualities would be falsified.

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Extended reading notes

Core claim

The central discovery is that first-time exposure to VR, even through a shared projection rather than headsets, generated positive perceptions among Ghanaian pre-service teachers: they described VR as an engaging and interactive way to learn, said it could support experiential learning, and viewed it as a promising alternative to synchronous online learning for its ability to simulate in-person presentations. Participants believed VR could enhance both teacher preparation and learner engagement, and they specifically noted its potential to address costly educational field trips. The same participants identified limited infrastructure, unreliable internet connectivity, and insufficient access to VR equipment as barriers. The paper takes these perceptions as evidence that VR can be a useful supplement in resource-limited teacher education if the infrastructure gaps are addressed.

Load-bearing premise

The study assumes that watching a projected VR environment on a shared screen gives participants a valid basis for judging VR's immersive and experiential value.

Editorial extensions

If this is right

Teacher-training colleges in similar settings can expect a single screen-based VR session to produce enthusiasm and a perceived connection to experiential learning.
Policymakers would have grounds to invest in shared projection equipment and reliable internet before buying individual VR headsets.
Colleges may consider VR-facilitated lessons as a complement to, or substitute for, synchronous online platforms such as Zoom for interactive sessions.
Curriculum designers could target VR content at topics that otherwise require expensive or inaccessible field trips.
The paper's own findings imply that infrastructure and foundational training must be in place before perceived benefits can materialize.

Reading between the lines

Editorial extensions of the paper, not claims the author makes directly.

Because no participant wore a headset, the positive perceptions may be about a novel projected medium rather than about virtual reality itself; a comparison against a standard two-dimensional interactive video would separate those explanations.
The study measures perceptions, not learning outcomes, so a controlled experiment comparing knowledge gains under projected VR, headset VR, and conventional instruction is the natural next step.
If the screen-projection experience is enough to create positive perceptions, the per-learner cost of initial VR exposure could be far lower than headset-based approaches, reshaping the cost calculus for low-resource institutions.
The suggestion that VR can replace expensive field trips is untested; acting on it would require evaluating whether virtual field trips deliver learning gains comparable to real ones.

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Signed reviews

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Editorial analysis

A structured set of objections, weighed in public.

Desk editor's note, referee report, and a circularity audit.

Desk Editor's Note

read the letter

The genuinely new thing here is the dataset: 36 Ghanaian pre-service teachers' perceptions after a VR-facilitated lesson, collected in a region with almost no prior VR exposure. The authors are honest enough to say in Section 3.2 that participants watched the VR environment through a Portal Screen projection and never wore headsets. That admission does more for the paper's credibility than the abstract does.

What the paper does well: it reports infrastructure and connectivity barriers that are consistent with the broader Ghanaian ed-tech literature, and the direct quotes support a modest claim about positive reactions to a screen-based demonstration. The thematic analysis is straightforward, and the recommendations—training, infrastructure, local content—are sensible and not inflated.

The load-bearing problem is that the abstract and Section 4.5 credit VR's immersive and interactive capabilities, but the participants could not experience immersion. They were watching a two-dimensional projection. Their statements about immersive potential are predictions, not perceptions. The first research question asks how participation influences perceptions, yet there is no baseline measurement, so the direction of influence is assumed. These two issues mean the central conclusions overreach the data. That said, the flaw is repairable: reframe the findings as perceptions of a screen-based VR demonstration, distinguish experiential from speculative claims, and soften the recommendations accordingly.

The self-citations [14,16,17] point to prior Ghanaian ed-tech work, and recruiting from the authors' home colleges raises minor independence concerns, but I don't see evidence of circular reasoning—the data are primary and not fitted to any model.

Who is this for? Policymakers in similar resource-limited settings and researchers building a local literature on VR adoption. It doesn't resolve a general theoretical question, and the sample is convenience-based, but it is a legitimate local data point. With revision, it could be a useful case study. I would send it to peer review, with the clear expectation of a major revision that fixes the construct-validity framing. The reader's CONDITIONAL verdict is correct; my own verdict would be the same.

Referee Report

3 major / 6 minor

Summary. This manuscript reports a qualitative case study of 36 Ghanaian pre-service teachers from two colleges of education who participated in a VR-facilitated guest lecture. Data from focus group discussions and reflective journals were analyzed thematically. The paper's central claims are that this initial exposure generated positive perceptions of VR, that participants saw VR as engaging and interactive, and that VR's immersive capabilities could enhance teacher preparation and learner engagement, while limited infrastructure and connectivity are perceived barriers.

Significance. The study addresses a genuinely understudied population and context, and its primary perceptual data on contextual barriers are valuable. The authors are transparent about the actual exposure condition in Section 3.2, which is commendable. However, the abstract and conclusions attribute 'immersive' qualities to VR that participants never experienced, making the central generalization unsupported as written. The manuscript can be repaired by reframing the claims as perceptions of a screen-mediated VR demonstration rather than experiences of immersive VR; with that reframing, it would be a modest but useful contribution to the contextual ICT-in-education literature.

major comments (3)

[§3.2, Abstract, §4.5] Section 3.2 states that 'participants were without VR headsets but joined the session via the Portal Screen,' meaning they watched a screen projection of a VR environment rather than experiencing immersive VR through a headset. Yet the abstract concludes that 'initial exposure to VR generated a positive perception' and Section 4.5 states that 'VR offers immersive and interactive experiences.' This is a construct-validity gap: the data measure reactions to a two-dimensional, screen-mediated demonstration, not to immersion, presence, or embodied interaction. Positive statements such as 'VR is very good and helpful' may reflect novelty or social desirability rather than the immersive qualities highlighted in the conclusions. The manuscript should be reframed throughout so that conclusions concern perceptions of a screen-projected VR demonstration, and any statements about immersive capabilities should be explicitly labeled as participants' speculative expectations, not experienced perceptions.
[§1 RQ1; §3.2] The first research question asks how participation in a VR-facilitated lesson 'influences' pre-service teachers' perceptions, and the abstract says exposure 'generated' a positive perception. However, no baseline or pre-test of perceptions was collected, and there is no comparison group. The data can support a description of post-exposure perceptions, but not a causal claim about influence or change. The research question and all 'generated/influenced' wording should be revised to describe perceptions reported after the session, or a baseline measurement should be added.
[§3.2, §4] The reporting of the qualitative method is underspecified. The manuscript does not state how many focus group sessions were held, their duration, the prompts or protocol used, how the Google Form reflective journals were structured, whether sessions were recorded and transcribed, or how the thematic coding was performed and trustworthiness addressed. Without this procedural detail, the reader cannot assess the analytic rigor of the thematic findings. A detailed methods subsection should be added.

minor comments (6)

[§4.1, Figures] Figure numbering is inconsistent: Section 4.1 refers to 'See Figure 1' for participants' awareness of VR, but the awareness figure is labeled Figure 3, while Figures 1 and 2 show the Portal Screen and the VR video. Please renumber.
[Abstract, §3.1] The abstract describes the participants as 'pre-service early childhood educators,' while Section 3.1 states that participants included both Early Childhood and Visual Arts pre-service teachers. These descriptions should be aligned.
[References] References [2] and [10] report identical page numbers and the same DOI; please verify these entries. Several other references are also incomplete (e.g., [4], [7], [12] lack full publication details).
[Throughout] The manuscript contains recurring typos and grammar errors, including 'resourced-limited region' (abstract, Section 3.2), 'pre-service teachers use of VR' (abstract), and 'the resources-limited region, like Ghanaian' (Section 3.2).
[§3.1, §4.4] The 'opportunities' component of the second research question is not reported as a distinct theme; Section 4.4 addresses only challenges, while opportunities appear scattered across Sections 4.2 and 4.3. A dedicated subsection would improve alignment with the stated research question.
[§3.1] Because participants were recruited from the authors' home colleges and the paper cites the authors' prior work (e.g., [14,16,17]), a brief statement on positionality and potential conflicts of interest would improve transparency.

Circularity Check

0 steps flagged · score 0.0 of 10

No significant circularity: the qualitative perceptions are primary evidence, and the study's conclusions are not derived by construction from a definition, a fitted parameter, or a load-bearing self-citation.

full rationale

This paper contains no mathematical derivation, fitted model, or imported uniqueness theorem, so most circularity patterns do not apply. The central finding—that initial VR exposure generated positive perceptions—is an empirical generalization from focus-group discussions and reflective journals, not a consequence of the study's assumptions. Section 4.5 states 'VR offers immersive and interactive experiences,' but this is a synthesis of participant reports rather than a quantity computed from an input. The authors' self-citations ([14], [16], [17]) appear in supporting roles: [14] is used to contrast with prior findings on motivation, and [16,17] support a general point about sustainability of technology integration; neither supplies the load-bearing premise of the paper. The primary evidence is the participants' own statements. The most serious weakness is construct validity, not circularity: Section 3.2 reports 'participants were without VR headsets but joined the session via the Portal Screen, allowing them to view the VR environment through a screen projection,' while the abstract and Section 4.5 credit VR's immersive qualities. This is an inferential overreach about what the participants actually experienced, but it is not a case of an input being redefined as an output or a fitted parameter being renamed as a prediction. No equations are present, and no result is forced by a self-citation chain. Accordingly, the circularity score is 0.

Assumptions & free parameters 0 free parameters · 3 assumptions · 0 invented entities

No free parameters or invented entities appear; this is a qualitative study. The relevant ledger items are domain assumptions, with the screen-projection equivalence being the most consequential.

assumptions (3)

ad hoc to paper Screen projection of a VR environment, without a headset, is treated as a valid basis for judging VR's immersive and experiential educational potential.
Section 3.2 says participants had no headsets and joined via the Portal Screen. The conclusions about immersive VR require this equivalence.
domain assumption Post-hoc self-reported enthusiasm after a one-time demonstration is treated as evidence of VR's potential to enhance teacher preparation and learner engagement.
Findings are based on focus groups and reflective journals after the lesson; no behavioral or learning outcome is measured.
domain assumption A convenience sample of volunteers from the researchers' home colleges is treated as informative for pre-service teachers in resource-limited regions more broadly.
Section 3.1 describes selection from the authors' home colleges and willingness to participate; generalization assumes representativeness.

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Cite this review

Pith. "Pith review of Virtual Reality in Teacher Education: Insights from Pre-Service Teachers in Resource-limited Regions." pith.science (2026). https://pith.science/paper/JNMVRTYK

@misc{pith2026241110225,
  author       = {Pith},
  title        = {Pith review of: Virtual Reality in Teacher Education: Insights from Pre-Service Teachers in Resource-limited Regions},
  year         = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://pith.science/paper/JNMVRTYK}},
  note         = {Machine review of arXiv:2411.10225}
}

read the original abstract

This study explores the perceptions, challenges, and opportunities associated with using Virtual Reality (VR) as a tool in teacher education among pre-service teachers in a resource-limited setting. Utilizing a qualitative case study design, the study draws on the experiences and reflections of 36 Ghanaian pre-service teachers who engaged with VR in a facilitated lesson for the first time. Findings reveal that initial exposure to VR generated a positive perception, with participants highlighting VR's potential as an engaging and interactive tool that can support experiential learning. Notably, many participants saw the VR-facilitated lesson as a promising alternative to synchronous online learning, particularly for its ability to simulate in-person presentations. They believe VR's immersive capabilities could enhance both teacher preparation and learner engagement in ways that traditional teaching often does not, especially noting that VR has the potential of addressing expensive educational field trips. Despite these promising perceptions, participants identified key challenges, including limited infrastructure, unreliable internet connectivity, and insufficient access to VR equipment as perceived challenges that might hinder the integration of VR in a resource-limited region like Ghana. These findings offer significant implications for educational policymakers and institutions aiming to leverage VR to enhance teacher training and professional development in similar contexts to consider addressing the perceived challenges for successful VR integration in education. We recommend further empirical research be conducted involving pre-service teachers use of VR in their classrooms.

Discussion (0). Continue with ORCID to comment.

Reference graph

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16 extracted references · 14 canonical work pages

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Pith tools

Reviewed August 12, 2026 · model on record in the stance chip above.

[1] [1]

eLearn 8 2012(4), 1 (2012) https://doi.org/10.1145/2181207.2181208

Burns, M.: Immersive learning for teacher professional development. eLearn 8 2012(4), 1 (2012) https://doi.org/10.1145/2181207.2181208

work page arXiv 2012

[2] [3]

Computers & Education 139, 103755 (2019) https://doi

FernÃąndez, M.Ã.: Immersive environments and their effect on teacher profes- sional development. Computers & Education 139, 103755 (2019) https://doi. org/10.1016/j.compedu.2019.103755

arXiv 2019

[3] [4]

Sustainabil- ity 13(19), 10740 (2021) https://doi.org/10.3390/su131910740

PÃľrez, A.M.: Immersive technologies for university teacher training. Sustainabil- ity 13(19), 10740 (2021) https://doi.org/10.3390/su131910740

work page doi:10.3390/su131910740 2021

[4] [5]

: Exploring the trends of educational virtual reality games: A systematic review of empirical studies

Oyelere, S.S., Bouali, N., Kaliisa, R., et al. : Exploring the trends of educational virtual reality games: A systematic review of empirical studies. Smart Learning Environments 7, 31 (2020) https://doi.org/10.1186/s40561-020-00142-7

work page doi:10.1186/s40561-020-00142-7 2020

[5] [6]

International Journal of Research and Scientific Innovation (2024) https://doi.org/10.51244/IJRSI.2024.1104034

Boafo, F., Dotse, H.A.A., Mensah, S., Boadu, D.: Exploring the impact of vir- tual reality on stem education in ghana. International Journal of Research and Scientific Innovation (2024) https://doi.org/10.51244/IJRSI.2024.1104034

arXiv 2024

[6] [7]

Journal of Online Learning Research (2019)

Narh, N., Boateng, R., Afful-Dadzie, E., Owusu, A.: Virtual platforms: Assessing the challenges of e-learning in ghana. Journal of Online Learning Research (2019)

work page 2019

[7] [8]

American Journal of Education and Information Technology 7(2), 51–58 (2023) https: //doi.org/10.11648/j.ajeit.20230702.11

Asare, S., Kyenkyehene, S.A., Emmanuel, M.K.: Interactive technology in phys- ical education classroom: A case of a ghanaian college of education. American Journal of Education and Information Technology 7(2), 51–58 (2023) https: //doi.org/10.11648/j.ajeit.20230702.11

work page doi:10.11648/j.ajeit.20230702.11 2023

[8] [9]

Education Sciences 11(8), 384 (2023) https://doi.org/10.3390/ educsci11080384

Morales, T.: Virtual reality and its impact on higher education: An empir- ical study. Education Sciences 11(8), 384 (2023) https://doi.org/10.3390/ educsci11080384

work page 2023