136 | JADE
KATE BAKER, ELLA TENNANT & FRANK RUTTEN
an early insight in an on-going project using virtual headsets for
training of nursing staff.
Five virtual reality headsets (Oculus Rift) were purchased to use
with immersive videos in collaboration across the Health faculty,
based on underlying earlier work with the School of Pharmacy. In
that earlier work, the Keele Active Virtual Environment (KAVE),
a full, projector-based virtual reality environment, was found to
be very effective, but rather difficult to port across and complex
to programme. The premise of this study was that the use of
immersive video in a “3D virtual reality” if implemented well can be
very compelling – akin being in someone else’s body – meeting the
identified training needs without requiring a full virtual reality setup.
The objective of the project, which is still very much in progress, is
to produce immersive learning experiences such as putting Nursing
students in the place of children during hospital submission.
Pete highlighted the potential of this approach by showing a number
of demo videos. Whilst of course not nearly as immersive as the VR
headsets, it gave the audience a bit of a flavour of what could be
possible with this approach.
A first example was filmed from the point of view of a child on a
stretcher being wheeled into a hospital, only able to see upwards.
The first movie showed good practice, with on-going explanation by
the nursing staff so the young patient would be aware of what was
happening. Being filmed in a working hospital, it was nonetheless
striking how noisy and disconcerting the experience would be for
a child. The example of bad practice, in which no explanation was
given at all, was truly disconcerting to watch – even on a standard
projector screen. During training students would discuss and
evaluate these videos, identifying the need for this aspect of their
training.
The second example explored the way a child with (relatively high
functioning) autism experiences the world around them. This video
was made by the National Autistic Society and aims to give an
impression of how a child with autism experiences sensory overload
in a shopping centre (see “Can you make it to the end” https://youtu.
be/Lr4_dOorquQ). The audience clearly agreed with students who
found this a very intense, even scary experience. However, feedback
from the student nurses was overwhelmingly positive in terms of
their reaction to the video as a learning experience. They found it
to be a very thought provoking activity and requested more videos
to offer similar activities related to other health conditions and
experiences.
Pete assured us that using the VR headsets makes this feel even
more real. His and Julie Green’s study has found that 3D movies
recorded on affordable equipment and displayed in this manner
are sufficiently immersive to give the nursing and other healthcare
profession students a real feel for the patients’ perspective and