Development and Initial Evaluation of Specific Immersive Competence in Virtual Reality-Based Medical Assessments:...

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Virtual Reality Technology
• Psychometrics

Background:

• Virtual reality (VR) is increasingly utilized in medical education for training and assessment.
• Learner performance in VR assessments can be affected by factors beyond clinical skills, such as immersive competence (IC).
• General IC relates to application-independent VR interaction skills, while specific IC addresses context-dependent proficiency in domain-specific VR applications.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and psychometrically evaluate a novel in situ checklist for assessing specific IC.
• To explore relationships between specific IC, general IC, and related human abilities.
• To investigate preliminary associations between IC measures and performance in VR-based Objective Structured Clinical Examinations (OSCEs).

Main Methods:

• Observational follow-up study with 21 final-year medical students.
• Assessment of general IC via a VR competence app and specific IC using an embedded checklist.
• Measurement of technological affinity, spatial ability, and OSCE performance, with statistical analysis of associations.

Main Results:

• The 13-item specific IC checklist showed acceptable internal consistency (Cronbach α=0.79) and balanced item difficulty.
• Specific IC was strongly associated with general IC (r=0.56) and prior 3D application experience (r=0.57).
• Both general and specific IC demonstrated borderline associations with VR-OSCE performance, but not with analog OSCE performance.

Conclusions:

• Specific IC is a psychometrically accessible construct for evaluating context-sensitive VR interaction skills.
• The in situ checklist provides a feasible method for assessing specific IC in domain-specific VR applications.
• Further research with larger samples is recommended to confirm the associations between IC and medical performance in VR assessments.