Purpose: This paper aims to examine three distinct aspects of authenticity that pre-service teachers (PSTs) experience when they engage with virtual classroom environments to develop their content-intensive instructional practice -- task authenticity, student avatar authenticity and performance authenticity -- and their perceptions about the usefulness of the simulated teaching experience to support their learning. Design/methodology/approach: This paper explored these conceptions of authenticity and usefulness within a larger research study whose goal was to develop virtual environment tools to help elementary PSTs learn how to engage in one ambitious teaching practice: facilitating discussions that engage students in argumentation. To examine these aspects of authenticity and usefulness, this paper used a general qualitative deductive analysis approach to examine data from 104 interviews with 26 case study teachers and examined patterns in PSTs' perceptions within and across interviews and authenticity aspects. Findings: While these PSTs strongly value the utility of these tools to support their learning, findings point to variation in their perceptions of authenticity. Findings showed that most PSTs perceived the tasks as an authentic representation of the work of teaching. However, their perceptions of task authenticity did not always align with their perceptions of avatar or performance authenticity. Originality/value: This paper argues that these three aspects of authenticity relate to, but expand upon, the broader notions of presence and plausibility noted in the literature on virtual environments and should be taken up more directly in future studies of users' perceptions of virtual environments both within and outside of educational contexts.