Virtual Reality in Higher Education

Virtual reality (VR) is an interactive experience which immerses the user in a digital environment through a sense of presence. In the context of providing an active learning experience, virtual reality has the potential to improve learning outcomes for biomedical science students as it allows the visualisation of and interaction with digital representations of dynamic objects and complex concepts. Studies in bioscience and medical education have shown mixed results pertaining to the benefits of VR as a learning tool. This review aims to consolidate how VR succeeded or failed in improving learning outcomes, and assesses the issue of VR scalability for the ever-growing cohorts in tertiary bioscience courses

How Can we Use Simulation to Improve Competencies in Nursing?

This open access book offers an overview of theories related to simulation and describes different simulation areas within nursing. It illustrates how simulation may be used in different levels in professional education. The book deals with the role of the Simulation Facilitator, peer learning and the use of Virtual Reality in simulation. It provides new insights and paths to the development of the use of simulation within nursing and healthcare and contributes with new knowledge from research and experiences of implementation of different simulating scenarios within nursing and midwifery. It is intended to teachers in nursing and other healthcare professionals with an interest in the use of active learning methods

Accessibility of Health Data Representations for Older Adults: Challenges and Opportunities for Design

Health data of consumer off-the-shelf wearable devices is often conveyed to users through visual data representations and analyses. However, this is not always accessible to people with disabilities or older people due to low vision, cognitive impairments or literacy issues. Due to trade-offs between aesthetics predominance or information overload, real-time user feedback may not be conveyed easily from sensor devices through visual cues like graphs and texts. These difficulties may hinder critical data understanding. Additional auditory and tactile feedback can also provide immediate and accessible cues from these wearable devices, but it is necessary to understand existing data representation limitations initially. To avoid higher cognitive and visual overload, auditory and haptic cues can be designed to complement, replace or reinforce visual cues. In this paper, we outline the challenges in existing data representation and the necessary evidence to enhance the accessibility of health information from personal sensing devices used to monitor health parameters such as blood pressure, sleep, activity, heart rate and more. By creating innovative and inclusive user feedback, users will likely want to engage and interact with new devices and their own data

Investigation of a holistic human-computer interaction (HCI) framework to support the design of extended reality (XR) based training simulators

In recent years, the use of Extended Reality (XR) based simulators for training has increased rapidly. In this context, there is a need to explore novel HCI-based approaches to design more effective 3D training environments. A major impediment in this research area is the lack of an HCI-based framework that is holistic and serves as a foundation to integrate the design and assessment of HCI-based attributes such as affordance, cognitive load, and user-friendliness. This research addresses this need by investigating the creation of a holistic framework along with a process for designing, building, and assessing training simulators using such a framework as a foundation. The core elements of the proposed framework include the adoption of participatory design principles, the creation of information-intensive process models of target processes (relevant to the training activities), and design attributes related to affordance and cognitive load. A new attribute related to affordance of 3D scenes is proposed (termed dynamic affordance) and its role in impacting user comprehension in data-rich 3D training environments is studied. The framework is presented for the domain of orthopedic surgery. Rigorous user-involved assessment of the framework and simulation approach has highlighted the positive impact of the HCI-based framework and attributes on the acquisition of skills and knowledge by healthcare users

Virtual Reality and Well-Being in Older Adults: Results from a Pilot Implementation of Virtual Reality in Long-Term Care

This paper describes the findings of a pilot implementation project that explored the potential of virtual reality (VR) technology in recreational programming to support the well-being of older adults in long-term care (LTC) homes