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Emanuel van Dongen was involved in and started a faculty USO project to introduce Virtual Reality (VR) pleading at Utrecht Law College. After all, learning to plead is central to law school. ‘During the first pilot, we asked students about their experiences,’ he says. ‘They appreciated practising in a realistic environment, and giving and receiving peer feedback helped them improve their performance.’ But what exactly made VR so valuable? ‘The vast majority of students (94%) felt that VR really contributed to their learning,’ Emanuel explains. ‘That raised the question for us: what exactly works, and how can we better substantiate it? That prompted us to apply for a Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) grant and investigate it systematically.’

Research challenges and how they were addressed

Emanuel and his team took a quantitative, step-by-step approach. ‘We first searched the literature for validated questionnaires that provided insights into aspects such as usefulness of immersive technologies, competence, self-confidence, reflective thinking and the role of feedback,’ says Emanuel. ‘We assembled those clusters of questions and translated them to our educational context so that they fitted the practice court for first-year law students.’

While validating the questionnaire, the team encountered a problem: ‘The Cronbach's α-score (a statistical way of measuring reliability, ed) for the construct self-confidence turned out not to be acceptable,’ Emanuel explains. ‘Factor analysis showed that self-confidence and competence were strongly correlated. This led us to rephrase two questions, after which we re-examined validity in the follow-up study.’ In addition, there were students who did not complete all the questions. ‘We solved that with a specific function in the R programme, so that we could still analyse reliable data.’

Impact on educational innovation inside and outside the university

The results of the SoTL project extended beyond the pilot study. ‘Our validated questionnaire became the basis for a larger project: (Dutch), funded by SURF,’ Emanuel enthuses. ‘In that project, we extended the VR experience with stress and heart rate measurements. The findings were eventually ’ He says the research shows that educational innovation can be more than just measuring student satisfaction: ‘We showed how important feedback and reflection are, and how an authentic learning environment can really enhance the learning process.’

Personal impact on teaching practice

For Emanuel himself, the project has also meant a lot. ‘I have gained a much better understanding of how students learn when they practise advocacy in an authentic, virtual environment,’ he says. ‘It is precisely the combination of realistic experience and peer feedback that turns out to be a powerful way for students to grow.’

Advice to other teachers who want to start SoTL

Emanuel stresses the importance of collaboration in a SoTL project. ‘It is really valuable to seek teaching support, for example through ED&T or the CAT,’ he says. ‘And practical help, such as a student assistant, can also take a lot of work off your hands. By collaborating with colleagues, not only does the project gain wider support, but you also increase the chances of success.’