Exploring mobile mixed reality for critical thinking in nursing and healthcare education: A systematic review

The shortage of nursing and healthcare clinical placements has prompted the investigation of ways to supplement authentic learning. Mobile mixed reality has become increasingly available, however, the affordances and design principles for the facilitation of critical thinking are yet to be explored.

To examine how mobile mixed reality facilitates critical thinking in nursing and healthcare higher education.

Systematic review.

A search in seven databases (MEDLINE, PsychINFO, AMED, ERIC, Scopus, Cochrane, and Web of Science) was conducted with 3488 titles and abstracts screened. The quality of the included studies was evaluated using the Mixed Methods Assessment Tool (MMAT).

A total of 12 studies with 1108 participants were included. The breadth of healthcare disciplines was limited to five disciplines that utilised bespoke scenarios on head-mounted displays. Most scenarios were emergency or critical response, with limited time for pre-brief, debrief, or overall user time. Only two studies directly measured critical thinking, with others including indirect reference to diagnoses, interpretation, analysis, or evaluation of healthcare scenarios. Affordances and design principles for the future development of mobile mixed reality for critical thinking in nursing and healthcare higher education are identified.

While some pedagogical affordances of mobile mixed reality can be identified in a narrow number of healthcare disciplines, there remain to be limited valid measures of critical thinking used to quantify effectiveness. Future studies would benefit from considering scenarios beyond emergency and critical responses, including longitudinal studies that reflect the development of critical thinking over time, and exploration of co-designed scenarios with and by nursing and healthcare students.