Immersive insights: Unveiling the impact of 360-degree videos on preservice teachers’ classroom observation experiences and teaching-quality ratings

Classroom videos are commonly used to observe and assess teaching quality in both teacher education and research on teaching and learning. In recent years, traditional video environments have increasingly been complemented by 360-degree videos, which promise a more immersive and realistic classroom experience and may affect the teaching-quality ratings that result. The aim of the present study was to explore differences between immersive 360-degree and traditional video environments in preservice teachers' (PSTs') classroom observation experiences and teaching-quality ratings. Seventy-five PSTs observed two classroom videos: one using an immersive 360-degree video environment and one using a traditional video environment. For 360-degree videos, observers reported higher cognitive, affective, and physiological involvement in the classroom situation, higher motivation, and higher mental effort when making classroom observations. For one aspect of teaching quality (focus on key concepts), the observation-based ratings resulting from 360-degree videos were better aligned with experts’ assessments of the videos. Furthermore, the results showed that the differences between video environments remained significant after the novelty of VR technology was controlled for.