Virtual Reality in Health and Medicine Education, 2019

The VirSam project aimed to give students in medicine, health and social sciences the opportunity to practice interprofessional collaborative learning (TPS) along patient courses in virtual arenas independent of other scheduled teaching. An important reason for creating virtual arenas is the practical challenges of giving students the opportunity to train enough in clinical situations (time on task), especially where they have to interact with others.

Traditionally, most of the students' contact with patients has taken place through hospital practice. Shorter length of stay means that the time the individual student has with patients is greatly reduced. There is thus a need for solutions that make the limited time they have with patients used more efficiently. Virtual arenas can be used for realistic training as preparation. Virtual solutions that are web-based and available to different groups of students (basic and further education) regardless of time and place.

The project systematically initiated the use of virtual arenas, a technology for teaching and learning that has been used to a very small extent. The project was well rooted in the international front on research on learning in 3D virtual arenas. The project responded to the recognized need for increased time on relevant assignments (time on task) and developed students' opportunities for self-regulated learning. The learning challenges were met by using the project's expertise from medical and health education, ICT / game technology and pedagogy to create innovative learning.

More applications have been developed an are described at www.virsam.no. The effect of one of these, ABCDE (systematic clinical observation) was studied in a four part randomized controlled trial (RCT) with 600 nursing and medicine students. In the RCT, the effect of both individual and groups-based training in VR was examined and found to be similar (non-inferior) to traditional teaching.