Work-in-Progress—Development of Immersive Nursing Skills Learning System and Evaluation of Learning Effectiveness

Abstract

Most nursing skills training programs involve teacher demonstrations in a professional classroom, and the students follow along step by step. The teachers correct the students’ techniques when they are practicing. However, teachers cannot give feedback to multiple students simultaneously. Thus, students may be restricted by time and space, resulting in a discontinuity in the practice process, and over time, students may forget the steps of the technique. Moreover, students use patient models to practice their skills rather than obtaining real-life experiences. To address these obstacles to effective learning, we developed an “immersive nursing technology learning system” to establish a virtual clinical ward. We trained nursing students to use head-mounted displays and controllers to click, grab, move, and drag items to complete basic actions, construct technical knowledge, and establish familiarity with specific skills. We employed the System Usability Scale to evaluate the usability of the system interface and actual teaching, and the result was an "OK" level. The learning effect of the experimental group’s technique was indeed improved. This study can be used as a pilot for immersive nursing technology education. In the future, we hope to expand the nursing technology learning systems to focus on hand movements.