Efficacy Study

Learning Gains from Transfr Health Sciences Simulations Beat Studying Slides 

Table of Contents

To evaluate the efficacy of immersive VR health sciences content (interactive simulations on obtaining vital signs: temperature, respiration and pain) versus self-regulated learning with read only content (in the form of electronic slide decks — referred to in this document as “slides”), Transfr researchers recruited volunteer users via a third-party panel service provider.* 


 

Only participants who answered “no” to the following screening questions were selected:

 

“In a professional capacity, have you ever provided direct patient/client care?“

 

“Do you have any formal education, degrees, licensure, or certification in a healthcare-related field or as a healthcare professional?”


 

Eligible participants were separated into two groups (VR or slides) and given a pre-test to evaluate their baseline knowledge before training. Participants then interacted with Transfr simulations or slides containing the same information to learn the tasks. The sample size for the Respiration and Pain test group was 61 (30 VR, 31 slides). For Temperature, the sample size was 56 (25 VR, 31 slides). 

 

All participants took a post-test after completing the VR simulation or studying the slides at their own pace. Post-tests were designed to mimic the exams that nursing and allied healthcare workers encounter. In both studies, the VR group showed higher overall average post-test scores and higher average learning gains. In the Temperature study, the VR group had an average post-test score of 85%; the slides group’s average score was 80%.

 * The panel service provider allows remote users in a variety of locations to access selected content using their own devices.

VR Learning Outperforms Slides

Similar to the Temperature group, the VR group in the Respiration and Pain study also showed higher average post-test scores and higher average learning gains. The average score for the VR learning group was 90%, compared to the slides group which had an average score of 86%.

Average VR group test score improvement beats slides group

As indicated previously, participants in the VR learning group showed greater score improvements than the slides group. In the Temperature study, the VR group showed an average improvement of 36.8 percentage points vs. 24.5 for the slides group*. In the Respiration and Pain study, VR learners showed a 17.3 percentage point improvement vs. the slides group, which had a gain of 9.7**. 

The results from these two studies align with the findings from our previous Blood Pressure simulation study specifically that learning from Transfr health science simulations consistently outperforms traditional learning methods. It is encouraging to validate that the learning experience delivered by Transfr simulations can lead to such large gains.

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