An analysis of factors influencing undergraduate students' learning preference in nursing laboratory courses with virtual reality technology: A scoping review

Virtual reality (VR) technology has been widely used in nursing laboratory courses to effectively making up for the shortcomings of traditional teaching. However, challenges such as cell phone addiction, negative emotions, and reduced communication between teachers and students still exist during the application process, which makes it difficult to achieve the goal of cultivating high-quality nursing talents. Students, as the main body of VR technology application in nursing laboratory teaching, directly affect the teaching effect of VR courses. This study aims to identify the factors influencing undergraduate students' learning preferences in nursing laboratory courses with VR technology through a scoping review. Following the PRISMA guidelines, 231 articles were retrieved from 6 databases, with 20 documents meeting the inclusion and exclusion criteria. The results show that prior experience, debriefing format, and instructor involvement are the most common influencing factors in the operational, debriefing, and undifferentiated phase of the virtual course, respectively. During the virtual operation phase, it is important to consider the integration between the disciplines and the VR technology. A group learning approach is used, and the length of the course and the frequency of learning can be adjusted according to previous experience. In the debriefing phase, synchronous debriefing can be chosen and the time is set between 15 and 30 min. Meanwhile, timely feedback from teachers is necessary for effective learning outcomes.