Usability assessment for cave automatic virtual environment-based immersive education system on novice nurses and nursing students: A mixed methods study.

BACKGROUND

Nurses are the primary implementers of enteral nutrition therapy and need to be trained in relevant skills, especially in the care of critically ill patients with neurological damage. Traditional educational methods fail to present the complex changes in the condition of critically ill patients and therefore do not meet current educational and practice requirements. The effectiveness of virtual reality (VR) in nursing education has been demonstrated. However, there is a paucity of evidence for using cave automatic virtual environment (CAVE), a novel VR technology, in nursing education.

OBJECTIVE

To develop and evaluate a CAVE-based immersive education system for the enteral nutrition care of neurocritical patients.

DESIGN

This was a convergent mixed-methods study that combined a single-group post-test design with structured interview.

PARTICIPANTS

This study included 57 participants, comprising 18 novice nurses from a hospital and 39 nursing students from a school in southwest China.

METHODS

An immersive education system was designed using CAVE. Participants followed a computer-provided random number to select the appropriate case to study using the system for a maximum of 2 h. A survey questionnaire was administered to gauge the usability, learning immersion, simulator sickness, and satisfaction of the system. Structured interview was summarized using inductive content analysis to gain participants' perceptions of the system.

RESULTS

This immersive education system includes a CAVE system, mobile evaluation system, and management platform. The usability score of the system was 78.99 ± 10.76, the learning immersion score was 64.12 ± 5.73, the simulator sickness score was 0.33 ± 1.46, and the system's satisfaction in all categories was above 85 %. The qualitative analysis identified four key themes. The integration of qualitative and quantitative data generated one confirmed, one complementary, and two expanded meta-inferences regarding the usability of the system.

CONCLUSIONS

The immersive education system developed using CAVE has been shown to have good usability and positive educational potential. Nevertheless, issues related to communication with the system, device usability, and inaccurate scoring must be resolved for its effective development as a learning tool.