Kia ora
Hāpaitia te Ngākau Aroha
Elevate Empathy
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Interested in this work?
Contact us if you are a teacher interested in taking part in our pilot study and we will send you more information on what it entails. The pilot study is running from January to the end of March 2025.
Anti-Bias Training with VR
We are a group of researchers from Waipapa Taumata Rau, the University of Auckland and Tātai Aho Rau, Core Education. Funded by a Royal Society Marsden grant, we have developed an anti-bias training for teachers that includes a virtual reality experience that enables educators to ‘walk in the shoes’ of a Māori intermediate student. The virtual reality experience has been designed to highlight the bias and racism that Māori can and do experience throughout the day, both inside and outside of school. We will assess the efficacy of the training via teacher and student surveys, student achievement tests in mathematics, and interviews with teachers.
Kia kitea ngā kokonga o te ngākau - To see the corners of the heart
Our whakataukī reflects the aim of our research: to enable teachers to deliberately position themselves in the feelings and experiences of their learners. This whakataukī seeks to draw attention to the parts of the heart that can be seen but that often go unnoticed. Many of our learners continue to navigate microaggressions and acts of implicit racism inside and outside of the classroom. This project will use innovative virtual reality technology to demonstrate the impacts of bias and racism on students by enabling teachers to ‘embody’ a student, seeing classroom interactions from a different perspective. The anti-bias training, developed and led by Professor Christine Rubie-Davies MNZM and Dr Hana O’Regan ONZM, will provide wraparound education and support that will encourage teachers to reflect on their expectations of and interactions with students and their whānau. By integrating this new way of perspective–taking into a high-quality and tailored professional learning programme we want to promote educational equity among all learners in Aotearoa.
Taku tirohanga ki te aorangi – My view of the world
Introducing Te Rangitīhore and his mate Hōhepa
This seated virtual reality experience allows the viewer to ‘become’ Te Rangitīhore and spend a day in his life attending an intermediate school in Aotearoa. The viewer moves through the school day, encountering different people in different contexts. The impact of microaggressions and acts of implicit bias are demonstrated through first-person experiences and Te Rangitīhore’s reflections (inner monologue), as well as dialogue with peers. The scenario has a run-time of approximately 15 minutes and is designed to be compatible with the Meta Quest 3 headset and presented alongside our anti-bias training. It has been developed from research conducted with educators who have experience of the Aotearoa education system.
We want you!
The research team is now recruiting participants for Hāpaitia te ngākau aroha - Elevate empathy. A key part of our project is assessing the efficacy of the combined VR scenario anti-bias training on teachers and their students. The intervention study will allow us...
Pilot study underway
We are excited to announce that our pilot study is now in the data collection stage with the first focus group discussion completed today and a further four interview sessions scheduled for next week. The pilot study will give us insights into how the VR scenario...
Filming for the virtual reality scenario a success
Filming for the Virtual Reality scenario took place in Christchurch over one weekend. An amazing group of talent came together to bring our script to life. We learnt about the added complexity when working with a 360-degree camera, which will later enable the...
2024-2025 Summer scholars
Congratulations to Carrie Wang and Daniel Eir who have been appointed as summer scholars to our project. Carrie (Education) and Daniel (Engineering) will primarily help with collecting and analysing data for our pilot study. Summer Research Scholarships enable...
Welcome to our new Research Assistants
We would like to welcome Roseanna Baker and Melina Amos to the research team. Roseanna and Melina are currently completing their Education Doctorates in indigenous methodologies at Waipapa Taumata Rau. Their cohort, led by academic from Te Puna Wananga, has the...
Collaboration with Māui Studios
We are pleased to announce that Māui Studios has come on board to develop and produce the virtual reality scenario that forms the foundation of our research project. Māui Studios is a kaupapa Māori production studio located in Christchurch and will provide the...
Acknowledgement
Our team wishes to acknowledge the Royal Society of New Zealand for providing us with a Marsden Fund which funds this social science research project.