Promoting Counselor Trainees' Clinical Skill Development Using Virtual Reality Simulations

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2024

DOI

10.7290/tsc06N72r

Publication Title

Teaching and Supervision in Counseling

Volume

6

Issue

1

Pages

79-90

Abstract

Although research on virtual reality (VR) as a pedagogical tool within counselor education is scarce, the parallel use of VR in health sciences education indicates VR simulations may have similar utility and effectiveness in training counselors. This conceptual piece aims to assist counselor educators in building VR simulations for counselors-in-training (CITs). The authors review the research on VR usage in counselor education and explore the practical implications of VR simulations for training counselors. The authors describe the development and utilization of VR simulations across multiple stages of training in a counselor education master’s program to support CITs’ clinical skill development during the COVID-19 pandemic. Advantages, limitations, and diversity and equity considerations of VR simulation usage in counselor training are discussed.

Rights

© The Authors.

Published and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons - Attribution License 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly attributed. The authors retain the copyright to their published article.

Original Publication Citation

Pope, A. L., & Hilliard, C. (2024). Promoting counselor trainees’ clinical skill development using virtual reality simulations. Teaching and Supervision in Counseling, 6(1), 79-90, Article 7. https://doi.org/10.7290/tsc06N72r

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