Can Virtual Reality Change How Medical Students Learn?
By Victoria Vavala
Technology has fundamentally changed how students learn. From smartphones to the internet, modern learners have access to more information, and ways of consuming that information, than ever before.
In the last few years, virtual reality (VR) has emerged as a contender in the next evolution of learning. So how does this medium apply to medical education?
The DICE Group conducted a literature review to better understand how VR could be used as a learning tool in healthcare. Keep reading to learn about our findings.
The basics
VR has been around for decades, but it wasn’t until the Oculus Rift Developer Kit was released in 2014 that VR became affordable for the average person.
For this reason — and the fact that technology changes so quickly — we focused on research from the past five years.
It’s also important to consider that “virtual reality” can take several definitions. For our purposes, we defined VR exclusively as devices with head-mounted displays (HMDs).
Additionally, since the field of medicine requires constant learning, we defined medical students as current or future medical professionals, though in some cases we extended this to mean adult learners in general.
Understanding and retaining information
In our study, we wanted to evaluate how VR affects a learner’s comprehension and retention of material over time (ex. final exams).
Research around learner comprehension showed mixed results, depending on how students were evaluated. Some showed traditional learning as better, some as equivalent and some with VR as superior.
For example, a study of 42 medical students compared learning cardiac anatomy in VR versus the traditional method of learning from cadavers. Strikingly, the VR group showed a 23.9% improvement compared to the control group.
Looking at retention of information, there were far fewer studies relevant to our search and incredible variation on time between testing and follow-ups — ranging anywhere from six months to the same day.
Notably, when we expanded our criteria to other adult learners, we found a study on mind palaces that compared how virtual spaces in headset and desktop environments affected participants’ recall of information.
This study asked participants to remember name and face pairs, as well as their location in that space. Those who used the VR version had an 8.8% higher retention rate than those using the computer.
This indicates that virtual environments may increase a learner’s recall and provide richer, more effective learning experiences that can be leveraged for medical education.
Spatial and 3D learning
Spatial learning utilizes environments and locations to create unique memories. We witness this in everyday life as we navigate to and from familiar places without having to check a map, or by remembering what stores are next to each other.
Virtual reality creates a new environment for learners to create those connections and orient information that may or may not have any correlation.
Additionally, VR allows the visualization of complex objects in three dimensions. For complex medical concepts like anatomy, this can be a novel experience for students: imagine being able to study the heart from every angle without ever stepping foot in the anatomy lab.
The spatial nature of VR also allows students to be transported to locations and situations outside their normal experiences. For example, paramedic students practiced Basic Life Support techniques in the middle of a basketball court and on the side of a river, mimicking the unpredictable nature of emergency situations, and allowing students to learn in context without putting patients at risk.
Motivating students
Medical students often have a study routine already in place, so it’s important to understand their motivation for using new tools. Along with comprehension and retention, we looked into how learning tools like VR affected students’ motivation to learn.
The vast majority of research shows that VR improves students’ motivation. Depending on the use case, this includes decreasing students’ fear of the subject matter and increasing their satisfaction with learning overall. However, while less commonly seen, the novelty of VR means that it may require a learning curve to use or increase student distraction levels.
Additionally, on average, students were only exposed to a 10-minute session of VR. This is a promising start, but it’s important to consider these factors as research into VR for education continues.
The bottom line
Can virtual reality change how medical students learn? We believe it can, depending on how it’s used. VR is a tool, not a teacher. It should be used as a resource, extra review or repetition, but not necessarily a replacement for didactic learning.
Future studies should continue to evaluate knowledge retention, learner motivation and when VR can aid in medical education. We must consider how VR is best leveraged for learning and include students in this conversation.
I hope you’ll join us as we continue uncovering how to use VR in medical education and beyond.
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Victoria Vavala
Victoria Vavala, the Medical Research Coordinator for the XR Lab at The DICE Group, designs and implements research studies around XR tech using a patient and provider-centered approach. As a proud Hufflepuff, she finds herself most at home baking, crafting and bringing a little magic into the world.
