Authentic interprofessional health education scenarios using mobile VR

Abstract

This paper explores the use of mobile virtual reality (mVR) to create authentic learning environments for health education, initially in three contexts, followed by the development of collaborative health team scenarios that mirror professional practice. The use of mVR mitigates the dispersion of the university’s seven health departments across three geographical campuses. We argue that the use of mVR provides an immersive and authentic student experience of real-world medical team scenarios. Building upon our experiences we critique the development of design principles for the integration of mVR within the curriculum and the establishment of a socio-cultural ethos of collaboration across the seven health disciplines at the institution. The unique contribution of our methodology is the focus upon a low-cost rapid user-generated development model explicitly founded upon design-based research, supported by a transdisciplinary team, modelling interprofessional practice.

Keywords

• design-based research
• scholarship of technology enhanced learning
• collaboration
• cooperation
• mixed reality
• mobile learning