Assessment of Biology Teacher Candidates' Attitudes and Competencies Toward Virtual Reality Applications

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to evaluate the attitudes and competencies of biology teacher candidates regarding virtual reality applications based on scientific and methodological developments for the improvement of the visualization system in biology. In this study, the survey model, which is one of the quantitative research methods, was used. The sample group of the research consists of 244 biology teacher candidates studying at various universities in Kazakhstan in the 2022–2023 academic year. Research data were collected with a virtual reality attitude and competence scale developed by the researchers. After exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses and construct validity studies were carried out, reliability analyses of the scale were made to get the final form of the scale, and Cronbach’s alpha reliability coefficient was calculated. As a result of the research, it was determined that the attitudes of pre-service biology teachers towards virtual reality were high and their competencies related to virtual reality were low. This suggests that biology teacher candidates have a medium level of attitude and competence in the virtual reality attitude and competence scale. In line with the findings obtained from the research, suggestions were made to improve the virtual reality attitudes and competencies of teacher candidates.