Implementation of virtual reality in health professions education: scoping review

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in JMIR Medical Education, is properly cited. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on https://mededu.jmir.org/, as well as this copyright and license information must be included.Background: Virtual reality has been gaining ground in health professions education and may offer students a platform to experience and master situations without endangering patients or themselves. When implemented effectively, virtual reality technologies may enable highly engaging learning activities and interactive simulations. However, implementation processes present challenges, and the key to successful implementation is identifying barriers and facilitators as well as finding strategies to address them. Objective: This scoping review aimed to identify the literature on virtual reality implementation in health professions education, identify barriers to and facilitators of implementation, and highlight gaps in the literature in this area. Methods: The scoping review was conducted based on the Joanna Briggs Institute Evidence Synthesis methodologies. Electronic searches were conducted in the Academic Search Elite, Education Source, and CINAHL databases on January 5, 2022, in Google Scholar on February 2 and November 18, 2022, and in PubMed database on November 18, 2022. We conducted hand searches of key items, reference tracking, and citation tracking and searches on government webpages on February 2, 2022. At least 2 reviewers screened the identified literature. Eligible studies were considered based on predefined inclusion criteria. The results of the identified items were analyzed and synthesized using qualitative content analysis. Results: We included 7 papers and identified 7 categories related to facilitators of and barriers to implementation—collaborative participation, availability, expenses, guidelines, technology, careful design and evaluation, and training—and developed a model that links the categories to the 4 constructs from Carl May’s general theory of implementation. All the included reports provided recommendations for implementation, including recommendations for careful design and evaluation, training of faculty and students, and faculty presence during use. Conclusions: Virtual reality implementation in health professions education appears to be a new and underexplored research field. This scoping review has several limitations, including definitions and search words, language, and that we did not assess the included papers’ quality. Important implications from our findings are that ensuring faculty’s and students’ competence in using virtual reality technology is necessary for the implementation processes. Collaborative participation by including end users in the development process is another factor that may ensure successful implementation in higher education contexts. To ensure stakeholders’motivation and potential to use virtual reality, faculty and students could be invited to participate in the development process to ensure that the educational content is valued. Moreover, technological challenges and usability issues should be resolved before implementation to ensure that pedagogical content is the focus. This accentuates the importance of piloting, sufficient time resources, basic testing, and sharing of experiences before implementation.publishedVersio

Implementation of virtual reality in health professional higher education: Protocol for a scoping review

International Registered Report Identifier (IRRID): DERR1-10.2196/37222Background: The use of virtual reality in higher education show great potential to promote novel and innovative learning experiences. Until recently, virtual reality has mostly been used in technical higher education, but lately medical education programs have begun using virtual reality. Virtual reality for health professional education improves the knowledge and skills of health professionals compared with traditional or other digital education initiatives. However, the implementation of technology in higher education is slow because of barriers to technology use and innovative and successful practices are not shared. It is, therefore, of great interest to explore how virtual reality is implemented in higher health professional and continuing education. Objective: The aim of this scoping review is to identify studies that reported implementation of virtual reality in higher health professional education, to identify barriers and facilitators for implementation, and to highlight research gaps in this area. Methods: The scoping review will be conducted according to JBI Evidence Synthesis methodologies. CINAHL, the Academic Search Elite and Education Source electronic databases, and Google Scholar will be searched for studies published between 2017 and 2022. In addition, manual searching of key items, reference tracking, and citation tracking will be performed. Searches for white papers will also be manually conducted. All authors will independently extract data from full-text papers. We will use qualitative content analysis to abstract the findings. Results: The literature searches were conducted in January and February 2022. The review is expected to be completed by fall 2022, after which time it will be submitted for publication. Conclusions: We anticipate that, from the review, we will be able to coordinate recommendations for and present the challenges of virtual reality initiatives in health professional education programs. We will present recommendations for future research.publishedVersio

Health Care and Social Work Students’ Experiences With a Virtual Reality Simulation Learning Activity: Qualitative Study

BackgroundVirtual reality is used to an increasing extent in various fields and is now making inroads into health and social education. Virtual reality simulation can provide a safe and controlled environment for students to practice and master skills that are transferable to real-world situations without putting patients, clients, or themselves at risk of any harm. Virtual reality simulation using 360° videos represents a novel approach to simulation in health care and social work education, and this inspired our interest in exploring students’ experiences with such a learning activity. ObjectiveThe aim of this study was to explore occupational therapy, social education, nursing, and social work students’ experiences with virtual reality simulation as a learning activity in an interdisciplinary subject. MethodsThe data were collected through 6 semistructured focus groups with 28 students. We conducted the focus groups after the students from the 4 education programs had participated in the virtual reality simulation at 3 campuses at a specialized university in Norway. Each focus group interview was facilitated by 1 moderator and 1 facilitator, a combination of experienced researchers and novices. We followed a qualitative design using the 6-step thematic analysis described by Braun and Clarke. ResultsThe analysis revealed 3 overall themes for students’ experiences with the virtual reality simulation. The first theme, 360° videos provide observations for individual learning, illustrates how learning can take place through the students’ experiences with sensory inputs and observations from the 360° videos. Students experienced that the video enabled them to individually reflect and achieve learning from what was considered a clinically relevant video. The second theme, 360° videos activate emotional learning, demonstrates how the students experienced emotional engagement when watching the 360° videos. The degree of realism provided in the video was considered as important for the students’ learning. The last theme, Debrief sessions enhance comprehensive learning, pinpoints how the students experienced learning through reflective discussions with other students after watching the 360° videos. Students claimed this process to be a vital part of the learning activity. ConclusionsVirtual reality simulation represents a promising learning activity to enhance the professional learning of health care and social work students. It offers opportunities for individualized learning through observations, and it also engages students emotionally in the learning process. The combination of 360° videos and group discussions in virtual reality appears promising to enhance professional learning outcomes and competence, which may contribute to improved health care and social work services

Praksisfellesskap i endring i norsk grunnskole? / English: Expanding teachers’ community of practice? Exploring teachers’ experiences of interdisciplinary collaboration in Norway : Læreres erfaringer med tverrfaglig samarbeid om elevers faglige og sosiale mestring

Med bakgrunn i politiske og faglige føringer for styrket tverrfaglig samarbeid i skolen, var studiens hensikt å utforske læreres erfaringer forankret i et konkret endringsprosjekt hvor alle barne- og ungdomsskoler i en mellomstor norsk kommune utforsket samskapende prosesser for tverrfaglig samarbeid. Studiens mixed-methods-design omfattet nettskjema med kvantitative og kvalitative spørsmål knyttet til samarbeid om elevers faglige og sosiale mestring. Studiens resultat gir implikasjoner for videreutvikling av det nasjonale prosjektet Et lag rundt læreren. Resultatene synliggjør bredde i læreres samarbeidsrelasjoner, samt variasjon knyttet til fag- og kontaktlærers rolle og skolers varighet i prosjektet. Studiens resultat viser at økt tilstedeværelse og støtte fra pedagogisk-psykologisk tjeneste (PPT) og helsesykepleier i lærers skolehverdag og etablering av skolevise, tverrfaglige lag bidrar til praksisfellesskap med mer relevant støtte til elevers faglige og sosiale mestring. Studiens resultat drøftes i lys av systemteoretiske perspektiv. Tverrfaglig samarbeid utforskes som sosial støtte i læreres praksisfellesskap og som samskaping på systemnivå. Konklusjonen peker på utfordringer ved ulik tverrfaglig samarbeidspraksis mellom skoler og læreres meningsforhandlinger av prosjektets kunnskapsgrunnlag, noe som utfordrer ledelse av utviklingsarbeidet i prosjektet.Based on political and professional guidelines to strengthened interdisciplinary collaboration in schools, the purpose of the study was to explore teachers’ experiences with practices of interdisciplinarity in an ongoing project including all primary and secondary schools in a medium-sized Norwegian municipality. Research methods included online forms with quantitative and qualitative questions related to exploring teachers’ experiences. The results of the study give implications to development in the national project A team around the teacher. The results highlight the multitude of teachers’ collaborative relationships, as well as the variation related to teachers’ role and duration in the project. The results of the study show that increased presence and support from the educational psychological service (PPT) and public health nurses in teachers’ everyday work, as well as the establishment of school-wise, interdisciplinary teams (lag), contribute developing communities of practice with more relevant support for academic and social coping for individual pupils. The results of the study are discussed using systems theories. Interdisciplinary collaboration is explored as social support in the teachers’ community of practice and as co-creation at system level. The conclusion points to challenges linked to different interdisciplinary collaborative practices between schools and teachers’ negotiation of the project’s knowledge base, which challenges the management of the development work in the project.CC BY 4.0</p