TY  - JOUR
A1  - Huang, Yizhen
A1  - Richter, Eric
A1  - Kleickmann, Thilo
A1  - Richter, Dirk
T1  - Class size affects preservice teachers' physiological and psychological stress reactions
BT  - an experiment in a virtual reality classroom
JF  - Computers & education : an international journal
N2  - Teachers frequently express stress associated with teaching in large classrooms. Despite the timehonored tradition in teacher stress research of treating class size as a job-related stressor, the underlying premise that class size directly impacts teachers' stress reactions remains untested. In this randomized controlled experiment targeted at preservice teachers, we utilized a standardized virtual reality (VR) classroom to examine whether class size (number of student avatars) directly affected physiological (heart rate) or psychological (subjective rating) stress reactions among 65 preservice teachers. Results from linear mixed-effects modeling (LMM) showed that class size significantly predicted both their physiological and psychological stress reactions in the simulated environment: Average heart rate and subjective stress ratings were both significantly higher in the large class size condition. Further investigations into the causes of this association has been proposed. These findings may contribute to a better understanding of the effects of classroom features on preservice teachers' emotional experiences and well-being.
KW  - Augmented and virtual reality
KW  - Simulations
KW  - Improving classroom teaching
KW  - Media in education
KW  - Pedagogical issues
Y1  - 2022
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2022.104503
SN  - 0360-1315
SN  - 1873-782X
VL  - 184
PB  - Elsevier
CY  - Oxford
ER  -