Evaluation of the volleyball coaches’ experience in a 3-dimensions environment

Abstract

The new technologies in sport can help to reproduce a real game context. Therefore, we aim to characterize the experience of volleyball coaches immerged in a 3D volleyball game to see if the device could be a credible tool in a coaching training program. Seventeen volleyball coaches were immerged into three sequences of a 3D volleyball game with Oculus Rift headset before completing a perceptions’ questionnaire composed by 33 items concerning users’ experience factors and 3 open-ended questions. The results show positive scores for the immersion (M = 6.49, SD = 2.84), positive emotions (M = 5.24, SD = 2.69), judgment (M = 7.70, SD = 1.82) and flow (M = 5.83, SD = 2.75) even if this last result has to be taken carefully. The answers to the open-ended questions confirm those data. Despite some limitations, the link between the results and some important notions of the behaviour change as the intrinsic motivation, the self-determination theory and the learning outcomes seems to emphasize the benefits of an implementation of the device into a coaching training program. Nevertheless, this use has to be limited to the training of observations of the environment rather than the intervention training because of the lack of control on the environment and interaction allows by the 3D device.