Experiences of Nursing Students from Using an Omnidirectional Pad vs Touch Controllers to Navigate a Virtual Clinical Simulation

Abstract

While immersive virtual reality has improved over the years, researchers are still seeking to create more realistic experiences for healthcare and nursing students' education to enable better immersive experiences. Methods: Forty-six undergraduate nursing students were exposed to a foreign body object scenario. The students' experiences were gathered using observations and retrospective think-aloud. The qualitative data was also quantitatively summarised based on the issues (negative findings) and findings (positive findings). Results: While the touch controllers seemed superior in almost all themes identified, the cybersickness category was much higher than for the omnidirectional pad. There were also controversial experiences between students for both navigation techniques.Conclusion: While the omnidirectional pad had more issues than the touch controllers, students found it fascinating, and it seemed to have a lower onset of cybersickness than the touch controllers. Students did, however indicate that the Omnidirectional pad might need improvement to become more realistic as it still did not feel completely realistic.

Keywords: Cybersickness, Immersive Virtual Reality, Extended Reality, Virtual Clinical Simulation, User Experience (UX), VR Navigation Techniques / Methods

DOI: 10.54941/ahfe1006718