Development of Sustainable Education Environments in Higher Education with Metaverse Applications

Abstract

In this study, the aim is to develop and evaluate the effectiveness of the curriculum within the scope of sustainable education based on metaverse applications for undergraduate students in the faculty of education. The “parallel–simultaneous design”, one of the mixed research methods in which quantitative and qualitative research methods are used together, was employed. After the needs analysis and content determination process, a total of thirty-nine students enrolled in the fall semester of the 2022–2023 academic year participated in the experimental process of the research. According to the expert opinions received, it has been revealed that the integration of technology and sustainable education is more difficult than the age groups of teachers. For this reason, the study was carried out with teacher candidates. It is clear that new teachers who receive training will play an important role in terms of creating a sustainable education system with innovative learning. Throughout this research, education was carried out in such a way that the experimental working environment was face-to-face. Courses were conducted on a weekly basis in a face-to-face classroom environment. Fourteen-week lesson plans were prepared in order to carry out teaching activities in line with sustainable education based on metaverse applications. In the second sub-objective of the study, when the effectiveness of the curriculum determined in terms of sustainable education based on metaverse applications was examined in the context of perceptions and attitude, it was found that there was a significant (positive) difference between the pre-tests and post-tests in favor of the post-test. In the third sub-objective of the study, it was found that the opinions of the teacher candidates about the effectiveness of the developed metaverse applications in the sustainable education course curriculum were positive.