Understanding the Australian disability support sector's workforce to predict the acceptance of virtual reality...

Area of Science:

• Health Sciences
• Human-Computer Interaction
• Social Sciences

Background:

• Empathy is crucial for frontline workers in the disability support sector.
• Virtual Reality (VR) technology shows potential for enhancing empathy training.
• Adoption of VR for training in the Australian disability sector is emerging but acceptance levels are unknown.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate internal and external factors influencing the acceptance of VR technology among Australian disability support employees.
• To identify key determinants for facilitating VR technology adoption in disability services.

Main Methods:

• Quantitative study employing the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM).
• 120 cross-sectional respondents from the Australian disability workforce completed an online Likert-scale questionnaire.
• Data analysed using descriptive statistics, reliability, correlation, and path analysis.

Main Results:

• Curiosity was identified as a significant external factor influencing VR acceptance.
• Past use of technology was also found to be a significant external factor in VR acceptance.
• Both curiosity and past use demonstrated a significant relationship with the acceptance of virtual reality technology.

Conclusions:

• Understanding factors like curiosity and past use is key to increasing VR training adoption for empathy enhancement.
• The study provides crucial insights into determinants of VR technology acceptance for the disability services workforce.
• Recommendations include evaluating curiosity and past use, offering VR workshops, and fostering collaborative environments for training and innovation.