Media Conceptions of Authentic Learning with Virtual Reality: A Public Pedagogy of Social Alienation

Educational use-cases for virtual reality (VR) have proliferated over recent years. The use of this technology is often viewed as a means of promoting authentic learning opportunities through immersive simulations. While prior research has attended to the pedagogical implications of authentic learning with VR, there is a lack of research considering media conceptions of authentic learning with VR. In this study we qualitatively analyze two popular education technology journalism websites to understand what kinds of authentic learning practices are promoted and why these practices are perceived as pedagogically valuable. Our findings show these sites value recreating authentic places and practices, and these activities are valuable insofar as they promote convenient instructional practices, memory retention, and safe spaces for learning. We problematize these media narratives for their tendency towards social alienation. In particular, we argue that these narratives constitute a form of public pedagogy that foregrounds individualist perspectives of learning and strips authentic learning from considerations of social equity and the active social construction of knowledge. Rather than bringing learners closer to real-world learning opportunities, these media conceptions of authentic learning with VR estrange learners from social reality by positioning them as non-agentic objects outside the active social construction of knowledge.