VR4Health: Personalized teaching and learning anatomy using VR.

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Virtual Reality Technology
• Anatomy Education

Background:

• Virtual Reality (VR) is increasingly adopted in education for its potential to enhance 3D spatial understanding.
• Existing VR applications primarily focus on student engagement, with less attention to teacher benefits.
• The integration of VR in health sciences education requires tools that support both student learning and teacher oversight.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce VR4Health, a VR application for inspecting 3D human organ models.
• To explore the benefits of VR for teachers in monitoring and guiding student learning.
• To evaluate student and teacher perceptions of the VR4Health application.

Main Methods:

• Development of the VR4Health application for use with Head-Mounted Display (HMD) devices.
• Implementation of a self-learning module for students to autonomously explore anatomical models.
• Integration of a teacher dashboard to report student activity and progress.
• Conducting an experiment with students and teachers, followed by a questionnaire-based perception evaluation.

Main Results:

• Students utilized VR4Health for self-directed learning of human organ anatomy.
• The application provided teachers with data to understand student engagement and identify learning needs.
• Initial evaluations indicated positive perceptions from both students and teachers regarding the VR tool's utility.

Conclusions:

• VR4Health serves as an effective self-learning tool for students in anatomy.
• The application offers valuable insights for teachers, enabling them to tailor instruction.
• VR technology holds significant potential for improving interactive and personalized health sciences education.