Questions/remarks

Comments/changes to the manuscript

Reviewer 1

There is an in-depth review and analysis of empathy as one of the dimensions of behaviour but there is very little to no review of additional and current VR-driven work in the area of empathy development.

A clearer distinction between VR-research in social work and specifically on social work and empathy development is made, and additional current VR-research on empathy development in social work is given line 78-91, p.2

The abstract and the introduction suggest including ethical concepts and frameworks which are totally missing from this paper.

The suggestion in the abstract that the paper will include ethical concepts and frameworks has been removed.

The suggestion in the introduction that the paper will include ethical concepts and frameworks has been removed. (See line 82-83)

Need a review of the ethical guidelines which need to be followed when designing a VR-based training application for the development of ethics, as well as the actual methodology of development taking into consideration these guidelines.

The importance of ethical consideration in the use of VR is stressed on line 116-117 p.3, examples of such considerations in this study are given in the methods section 249-284, p. 6, and commented on in the Limitations and conclusions section 551-564, p 15.

The materials and methods are adequately described however there is a lack of detail about the primary VR tool that was used in this study.

1.        Why was this particular application chosen?

2.        What made it particularly suitable for the study?

3.        Was its content comprehensive enough to provide suitable grounds for research?

4.        Were the authors participative in its design and was it designed for the particular target audience the researchers were targeting?

This is now clarified on lines 249-284, p.6

The authors fail to mention how this type of training and development could also be counter productive in the development of empathy.

It seems that the scenario covered only one aspect of bullying in schools in a specific context, and since bullying is quite complex and has many issues which a social worker would need to contend and deal with, including trying to understand what might have triggered bullying behaviour, this might create a conflict in the full understanding of how to deal with this type of behaviour.

In this particular instance it seems that the participants are walking in the shoes of the victims, and taking stands against the bullies and the teachers who seem helpless.

Ethically, and since this is for professional development there needs to be an indication of how social workers might gain to benefit from an empathic development that deals with all the actors involved in such a behavioural display as in bullying.

It might be worthwhile for the authors to mention this as well. 

The VR-experience referred to in this study was offered as a voluntary “extra” to the students’ ordinary education in which multiple perspectives on bullying in relation to social work and social workers are covered, as are the fact that empathy development does not equate to good behavior, etc. For reasons of ethics and to not risk the possible identification of the students, specific programs and courses are not mentioned in the text. However, we have taken the reviewers advice and clarified the importance of multiple perspectives in line with the reviewer's comment on lines 256-281, p 6, and 473-475, p13.

The “golden rule of reciprocity” (treat others as you would have them treat you) can be thought of as a fundamental human moral imperative. The most outstanding feature of immersive virtual reality (VR) is that it is possible to give people the experience of the golden rule “en situ”. For example, while immersed in VR environment, one can place people virtually in any situation, even make the user temporarily occupy the body and position of an “outgroup” member, impersonate a completely different role.  The presented study clearly benefits from this feature and its aim was to analyse research participants’ experiences with a bullying scenario through VR in order to explore the pedagogical potential of this technology to support the enhancement of cultural empathy in international social workers

We appreciate all the positive, supportive, and informed comments made by reviewer 2

Besides “walking in someone shoes”, Virtual Reality gives opportunity to have  any imaginable experience from a first-person perspective. One can, for instance, be exposed to a virtual representation of a phobic agent/situation where  the user/viewer knows it is not real but it feels it as if it were. VR has become increasingly used for therapeutic purposes including treatment of phobias and anxiety and pain management. The therapeutic potential of VR fo the rehabilitation of violent offenders (Seinfeld, S., Arroyo-Palacios, J., Iruretagoyena, G., Hortensius, R., Zapata, L. E., Borland, D., et al. (2018). Offenders become the victim in virtual reality: impact of changing perspective in domestic violence. Sci. Rep. 8:2692. doi: 10.1038/s41598-018-19987-7) has already been experimentally tested, therefore the topics proposed by the authors are well established in the field. Nevertheless, the research results presented in the paper are original and highly relevant.

All advantages of VR rely on the extent to which the experience is perceived as real. Exploiting VR for cognitive empathy is pursued to gain a skill grounded on a communicative process between the user of VR and his/her ‘embodiment’ in a conflict situation, where one can gain understanding of another’s body language and facial expressions. It is reasonable to imagine that more realism (real-life 360-degree video) in the VR scenarios increases their effectiveness in transformative learning.  Most VR therapeutics are based on synthetic/abstract contents, so the authors show a bold approach where VR is proving to be an excellent method for finding out how people might behave in practice, rather than how they think that they might behave in answer to a questionnaire

Some researchers noticed, that VR had strong and exacerbated emotional effect with increasing realism of the virtual experience. The authors tackle it from the moral side, providing in depth analysis of the impact on the viewer.

More cultural diversity in the VR probe material would be nice (in a multinational group)

We agree that more cultural diversity in the material would have been nice. This material was used in this study as it is freely available, and it perfectly suited the learning outcomes of the social work course.

The work presented the results of a subjective study evaluating the effectiveness of immersive HMD VR in educating social workers with respect to the empathetic and altruistic aspects of bullying situations. The work presents a small user study consisting of 38 volunteer participants, all of which were within the 1 year cohort of a social working BS program. The 38 participants were provided a link to a 360 video containing a 'first person' perspective of a series of bullying incidents occur within a 'high school' classroom. The participants were then brought in person to experience the same video scenario through a head mounted display. Participants were then placed into focus groups of 8 - 10 where questions and discussions were prompted with respect to the various types of responses the VR experience insighted within the participants.

We respect the views and opinions of Reviewer 3. This article is based on qualitative non-experimental research. The sample size (38 volunteers) is in accordance with the recommended norm for qualitative research. 

The authors go to great detail providing references and definitions / descriptions of the various emotional aspects of Social Work pedagogy. There is not a large amount of depth spent on discussing existing work related to immersive VR and emotional responses. There are a few references, but the objective utility of those references is not provided. An example would be the use of the 360 video, which the authors themselves note is not 'immersive' in that the participant is not able to directly interact with the scene, simply view. Was there a literature search performed and objective measures obtained with respect to the levels of immersion of 360 fixed position videos? Was the implementation utilized in this study simply take due to simplicity? Was the video already existing or was the video itself a common aid in other teaching situations? There didn't seem to be a lot of justification for why the study was implemented the way it was, other than to simply have an HMD VR experience

As stated in the method section of the article, the study was carried out in the year 2019 and completed in the year 2023, as one of the co-authors passed away.

The literature search was performed prior to the study using several databases such as SCOPUS and Web of Science, however the literature search was not carried out in a systematic manner. In line with the reviewers request we have added references to current research on the use of VR for empathy development in social work.

The implementation was not due to simplicity but as a primary study to have the perspectives of the social work students on the use of VR as a pedagogical tool.

The video already existed and was found appropriate with reference to the social work course on exploring social work interventions. We have revised the Materials and Methods section to more clearly describe our reasons for choosing the 360-video, as well as how and why the use of HMD VR was part of a larger educational experience and not an isolated event/experiment.

We have now added several lines in the limitation section of the article (Refer to Page 15) with justifications on this simple but highly important exploratory social work education research as confirmed by the other reviewers.

I don't believe the described scenario or the focus group discussion results adequately answer any of the above three. There are several reasons for this. A primary reason is that the participants were already provided and asked to watch the scenario before experiencing the VR. Objectively, the participants should have at least randomly been selected to experience the VR first, and then watch the same scene without VR to remove psychological bias from ordering effects. The focus groups were also conducted with multiple participants together, which naturally means the results are skewed due to normal bias from public discussions. What if any precautions did the authors take during the focus groups to ensure more assertive opinions did not sway other introverted participants. Usually a solo written questionnaire is also provided participants to gather information immediately following the experience which can be checked later against the focus group output to detect changes in opinions and potential peer bias.

Once again, we would like to respect the views and opinions of the reviewer. We have now added a few lines in the limitations section with regards to the points raised by Reviewer 3 (Refer to page 15).

This study needs to be considered from an anti-positivist/ interpretative perspective. Most of the students from the class participated in the study and random selection would not have made additional contribution.

It is quite normal in focus group discussion to have multiple participants together and the prime value of this research method is that it allows disagreement and discussions on different opinions and experiences. The focus group discussion moderator, based on his 25 years of experience and training in social research, employed interviewing skills and techniques to allow and nurture different opinions and views of the research participants during the discussion. In addition,

a reflexive method using ATLAS-ti software was used by the researchers to deal with potential peer biases.

Lastly, there didn't seem to be any concrete connection between the experience of the bullying scenario and any enhancements to aspects of social work pedagogy, other than the participants themselves all being within a social work cohort. It was not clear how this work pushes forward the body of knowledge related to social work pedagogy.

Refer to Section 4.3 HMD VR: Enhancing Cultural Empathy in International Social Work Education. Where we have explored the potential of using the HMD VR as a contribution to social work pedagogy, more precisely in the field of training social work students in cultural empathy development. We have also added a section in the Limitations and Conclusions section to more clearly illustrate how the pedagogical use of HMD VR in combination with (focus group) discussions can support transformative learning and the development of cultural empathy.