Incorporating virtual reality in nurse education: A qualitative study of nursing students' perspectives

Background: Recent challenges to nurse education have resulted in an increased use of virtual reality which serves as an immersive and effective medium for skill and knowledge acquisition. Virtual reality technology is being included in nurse curricula at undergraduate level. This technology remains a relatively new experience for many nursing students with limited evidence regarding students' perspectives regarding virtual reality. Objective: To explore nursing students' perspectives of incorporating virtual reality in nurse education. Design: Qualitative descriptive study using thematic analysis. Setting: Public university in Ireland. Participants: Undergraduate nursing students were recruited using purposive and snowball sampling. Methods: Students (n = 26) participated in face-to-face semi-structured individual interviews and focus groups in January and February 2020. Data were analysed using inductive thematic analysis. Results: Three themes were constructed from the interviews: captivating, innovative, and empowering nature of virtual reality; contextual transfer; and challenges and threats to actualisation. Participants believed that virtual reality affords a novel, fun, memorable, inclusive, and engaging means of learning. Many believed that virtual reality would complement current teaching and learning approaches, help build learners' confidence, and provide nursing students with a safe space for trial, error, and problem-solving. The use of virtual reality was recommended to practise various nursing skills and learn about human anatomy, physiology, problem-solving, and clinical decision-making. Participants identified the resources incurred by the technology as challenges to implementing virtual reality in nurse education and stressed the need for continuous face-to-face feedback. Conclusions: Findings suggest that virtual reality technology has the potential to facilitate learning, complement current educational approaches, and provide nurse educators with novel and engaging means of content delivery.