PEDAGOGICAL CHALLENGES ENCOUNTERED IN THE DESIGN OF VIRTUAL WORLDS AS A LEARNING ENVIRONMENT

Although virtual worlds emerged as a socialization environments, they have being used in various areas of education. In these environments, there are several studies focusing on challenges in teaching and learning, however what pedagogical challenges that instructional designers experience during the design in virtual worlds was not elaborated. In this study, the pedagogical challenges faced by designers of virtual worlds in designing the learning-teaching process have been investigated. 15 experts who participated in the virtual world design process have attended. A 30-item questionnaire developed by researchers was used as a data collection tool. The results showed that experts have difficulties especially in monitoring, evaluating, scaffolding and feedback in virtual worlds. Based on the results, how these challenges might be overcome are discussed