The outlook of learning through metaverse technology from the perspective of teachers in the science education

Abstract

As a personal avatar, Metaverse can be very effective in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) classrooms such as science classes that are practical and experimental. In this article, the aim is to report a study related to the perception of teachers and their attitudes towards the use of metaverse tools in teaching elementary science classes in Iranian education system. The study uses qualitative content analysis as well as quantitative analysis represented by descriptive statistics. The former includes of semi-structured interviews with 28 samples from two groups of pre-service teachers (inexperienced) and in-service teachers (experienced), which participants were given the opportunity to express their perceptions of Metaverse tools through interviews. The latter comprises a survey was designed to get their attitudes towards the potential use of Metaverse technology. The results showed that the nature of inexperienced ‘digital native’ is in line with the metaverse world and this group had relatively high confidence in using Metaverse in their teaching. Generating these new ideas requires a degree of experience that pre-service teachers do not have. However, this gap can be bridged through a group of experienced teachers who can use their experience to help inexperienced teachers understand how such tools can be integrated into practice.