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Immersive Virtual Reality (iVR) is increasingly being used in education for its ability to recreate vivid, realistic environments that enhance engagement and motivation. In history education, iVR is often addressed when fostering emotional connection and empathy. However, its potential to support critical historical thinking, such as analysing sources, evaluating perspectives, and understanding bias, is less often addressed. This study contrast emotional and analytical uses of iVR in the history classroom. It investigates teachers’ perceptions of iVR in history education, with a focus on how those perceptions shape pedagogical goals, motives, and implementation strategies.

Guided by Affordance Theory and Leontiev’s Activity Theory, the research adopts a qualitative design based on in-depth semi-structured interviews with twelve history teachers who have implemented iVR in their classrooms. Participants were selected based on their expertise in history education, experience with iVR for teaching, and alignment with competency-based curricula. Through thematic analysis, the study found significant variation in teachers’ strategies and aims, closely linked to their digital competence and the perceived affordances and constraints of iVR. Teachers with higher competence aimed for more complex tasks, such as student-led content creation and applied knowledge, while others focused on motivation and visualization. Some educators expressed concerns that poorly scaffolded iVR content risks oversimplifying historical narratives and promoting passive learning. The findings suggest that the effective use of iVR in history education depends less on the technology itself and more on how it is contextualized, critically framed, and pedagogically enacted.