Enhancing emotional understanding in teacher education: the role of perspective-taking in effective simulation training

Simulation training is a growing tool in teacher education for developing social and emotional skills. However, most evidence for its effectiveness relies on subjective self-reports, which may overestimate outcomes, and little research has explored the moderating role of individual differences, such as perspective-taking, using objective measures. To address these gaps, a pretest (N = 202) identified perspective-taking as a key component of deeper engagement in simulation workshops. The main study (N = 116) used a pretest–posttest design with a control group and a validated ability test to assess emotion recognition. Results showed that simulation training improved teachers’ emotion recognition, primarily for individuals with a strong propensity for perspective-taking. However, the magnitude of improvement was smaller than effect sizes from self-report studies, highlighting the need for multi-method assessments. These findings emphasize tailoring simulation interventions to individual traits and integrating subjective and objective measures in future research.