Project Outputs
Keep up to date with the different ways that we are sharing our findings.
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Infographic: Findings from a pilot study on bias and empathy
We have developed a Virtual Reality (VR) scenario that enables teachers to “walk in the shoes” of a Māori student experiencing bias. The participant virtually embodies Te Rangitīhore, a 12-year-old boy navigating his day at school that includes positive and negative interactions with peers, whānau (family), teachers, and community members. Sixteen educators participated in a pilot study to explore how taking a student’s perspective promoted empathy as a way to bring awareness to and combat bias.
Infographic: Developing a virtual reality scenario for teachers
Although anti-bias training for teachers exists, these initiatives typically have short-term impacts. We argue that there is the need for a new type of anti-bias training that integrates immersive experiences to strengthen empathy and motivate change. To test this hypothesis, we developed a Virtual Reality (VR) scenario embedded within a professional learning and development programme for teachers in Aotearoa New Zealand. This was the process we went through to develop: Taku Tirohanga ki te Aorangi – My View of the World.
Infographic: Teacher practices to promote equity in the classroom
The expectations that teachers have for their students shapes students’ opportunities to learn. Teachers who have high expectations of their students differ to low expectation teachers in three key areas: 1) classroom climate, 2) goal-setting, and 3) grouping & learning experiences. We asked participants from our 2025 intervention study what strategies they use to promote student success in their classrooms here in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Infographic: Outcomes of an anti-bias training for teachers
We have developed an anti-bias training for teachers that includes a virtual reality experience that highlights the bias and racism that Māori students can and do experience throughout the school day. In 2025, teachers and school leaders completed the training. We administered surveys before and after the intervention to assess the impact that the training had on their beliefs. These are the findings.
NZARE 2025
Māori students experience personal and institutional racism in Aotearoa’s education system. This bias can be embedded in teacher beliefs and behaviours. Our team’s prior research has found that teachers typically have lower expectations for Māori students and more harshly judge their academic performance compared with Pākehā students. This translates into teacher behaviours that negatively impact Māori students’ learning. Current approaches to teacher PLD typically entail passive learning with limited efficacy. Nascent research suggests that virtual reality (VR) is potentially a powerful empathy-builder. As such, this 3-year project develops, implements, and evaluates an anti-bias teacher PLD that includes an VR experience where teachers ‘embody’ a male Māori intermediate student facing bias at multiple points in the day, both within and outside of school. The scenario encourages perspective-taking to increase empathy. The symposium first describes the need for the project, detailing the history of systemic racism in Aotearoa. The second presentation describes the development of the PLD: writing the script for the VR, working with a Māori-run company to film the scenarios using a 360-degree camera, and integrating the VR into a multi-session PLD. The third presentation describes preliminary findings on whether the PLD reduces the bias experienced by Māori students.
O’Regan, H., & O’Connell, P. (2025, November 18-20). The context, historical and present: why we need to do something different if we want to see different results. In J. Smith (Chair), Hāpaitia te aroha: Exploring the use of virtual reality in teacher PLD to elevate empathy [Symposium]. New Zealand Association for Research in Education (NZARE) 2025 Conference, Auckland.
Amos, M., Baker, R., & Rubie-Davies, C. (2025, November 18-20). Development of a virtual reality scenario and its integration into an anti-bias teacher PLD programme. In J. Smith (Chair), Hāpaitia te aroha: Exploring the use of virtual reality in teacher PLD to elevate empathy [Symposium]. NZARE 2025 Conference, Auckland.
Meyer, F., & Rudd, G. (2025, November 18-20). Transforming teachers’ beliefs and practices: An intervention study. In J. Smith (Chair), Hāpaitia te aroha: Exploring the use of virtual reality in teacher PLD to elevate empathy [Symposium]. NZARE 2025 Conference, Auckland.
IVCNZ 2025
This pilot study explored whether a Virtual Reality (VR) scenario in which participants embody an indigenous 12-year-old student experiencing bias can evoke empathic responses in educators. Participants engaged with a 15‐minute VR narrative. Physiological measures including heart rate (HR), heart rate variability (HRV), and electrodermal activity (EDA) were recorded. Further, self-reported empathy was assessed using the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI). Repeated measures ANOVA indicated a significant overall effect for HR, however, pairwise comparisons did not reveal any significant increase during the VR scenario. No significant changes were observed in HRV, EDA, or IRI subscale scores. These findings suggest that the VR scenario may not robustly induce the anticipated physiological or self-reported empathic responses and points to areas for future research.
Amor, R., Eir, D., Rudd, G., Meyer, F., & Smith, J. (2025, November 19-21). Measuring Teacher Empathy in a Virtual Reality Scenario Simulating Racial Bias [Paper presentation]. Image and Vision Computing New Zealand 2025 Conference, Wellington.
EARLI 2025
Teachers hold conscious and unconscious beliefs about their students which may reflect biased or stereotypical understandings of diverse student groups. These beliefs shape how teachers interact with students, ultimately contributing to the extent to which students reach their academic potential. Virtual reality (VR) has been billed as an ‘empathy machine’, enabling teachers to take the perspective of their students. It is argued that by embodying an ethnic minority student and experiencing acts of implicit racism and microaggressions ‘first-hand’, teachers will be more likely to reflect on and change their beliefs and practices to be more inclusive.
This paper will present the findings of a pilot study which aims to evaluate the efficacy of a newly developed VR scenario. Developed based on research, the VR scenario takes participants through a school day of a Māori intermediate school student within the Aotearoa New Zealand education system, navigating a range of social interactions, some of which have been designed to explicitly simulate the experience of being the target of racism. Both quantitative measures of teachers’ attitudes and beliefs and qualitative data collected via focus groups will be analysed to determine how participants engage with the VR scenario. The findings will provide some of the first insights into how a VR embodiment experience impacts teachers’ beliefs. The findings will shed light on how teachers experience, accept, and reflect on the embodiment experience and relate it to their practice. Further, a discussion on how VR can be utilised in educational spaces to combat biased teacher expectations is presented.
Meyer, F., Rudd, G., Smith, J., Rubie-Davies, C., Amos, M., Baker, R., O’Regan, H., & O’Connell, P. (2025, August 25-29). Using Virtual Reality to Increase Empathy and Combat Bias in the Classroom: A Pilot Study [Paper presentation]. EARLI 2025 Conference, Austria. https://www.earli.org/events/earli2025#section-programme
IAIR & IACCP 2025
This paper reports on the first stage of a 3-year intervention study, in which we used existing research and newly collected data to design a virtual reality (VR) scenario to disrupt biased teacher expectations. The VR scenario takes participants through a school day of a Māori intermediate school student within the Aotearoa New Zealand education system, navigating a range of social interactions, some of which have been designed to explicitly simulate the experience of being the target of racism. By integrating these acts of implicit bias and microaggressions into the scenario we aimed to develop an impactful tool as part of an anti-bias training programme for teachers.
While VR scenarios have been developed to enable people to embody a person from an ethnic minority group, including in a classroom setting, they are few and far between. Furthermore, there is a paucity of literature that outlines the theoretical, ethical, and practical considerations involved in developing a VR scenario of this nature. By drawing on our own experience of developing a VR scenario to combat bias in the classroom, this paper will present the key considerations that we navigated and present the outcomes of these decisions. We will also reflect on the process of translating research into a VR scenario aimed at combating biased teacher expectations.
VR technology is becoming more accessible and offers new ways to facilitate intergroup contact and reduce bias. This is important in classrooms where teachers’ expectations of their students influence student educational experiences and outcomes. By integrating a VR scenario into a bespoke anti-bias training programme, we aim to promote more culturally responsive teaching and therefore make education in Aotearoa New Zealand a more inclusive space. The development of this VR scenario is part of a wider project that will assess the efficacy of an anti-bias training programme that includes a VR scenario to determine the extent to which this approach positively impacts the beliefs and behaviours. It is intended that this paper can act as a touchpoint for other researchers interested in translating bias research into a VR scenario that promotes social reflection and change.
Rudd, G., Meyer, F., Smith, J., O’Regan, H., O’Connell, P., Amos, M., Baker, R., & Rubie-Davies, C. (2025, June 26 – July 1). Designing a virtual reality scenario to combat bias in the classroom: Considerations and reflections [Paper presentation]. IAIR & IACCP 2025 Conference, Brisbane, QLD, Australia. https://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/iaccp_regional/2/