Experts' review of a virtual environment for virtual clinical simulation in South Africa

Abstract

Virtual reality (VR) is becoming ever more used within the field of education. During this study, the researchers created a virtual environment (VE) for use in Southern Africa, where students could practice managing a young adult with a foreign object in the airway. The aim of the VE was to determine whether a viable, “home‐made” solution could be created which could also be expanded later on to incorporate more scenarios. This was due to the expensive nature of existing systems for virtual clinical simulation. To determine whether the VE is usable, two expert review panels assisted in testing the VE. The first‐panel being Computer Science experts and the second Health Science (HS) experts. Each panel evaluated the environment and the scenario using heuristic evaluation and cognitive walkthroughs. The recommendations made during each of the expert reviews were implemented to improve the VE, thus enabling students to experience an accurate, virtual scenario that could positively influence their learning experience. The findings and recommendations made during the expert reviews are presented in this paper to assist in improving future developments within the field of VR in HS education, especially for developing countries in Africa.

Expert Review on Mobile Augmented Reality Applications for Language Learning

“…In this section, the expert review method is further described. An expert review is a form of testing that can be used to ensure that students are not exposed to any www.ijacsa.thesai.org inappropriate procedure that could affect their learning [19]. The selected expert evaluation method was appropriate because only a small sample of feedback was required to evaluate and support the application development.…”

Analyzing the Use of Heuristics in a Virtual Reality Learning Context: A Literature Review

“…This framework contained eight heuristics: focus, provocation, simulation, collaboration, control, digital life, skills, and multimodal experience [28]. Similarly, the authors of [31] created their own set of heuristics that focused on evaluating the technological and pedagogical knowledge that the teacher implements plus the content knowledge of the material being delivered through the VR experience. To evaluate the usability of the VE, two expert review boards aided in assessing the VE.…”

“…Each board assessed the environment and the situation using heuristics evaluation and cognitive walkthroughs. The suggestions made during each of the expert reviews were applied to improve the VE, thus enabling learners to feel an accurate virtual situation that could positively affect their learning capability [31]. However, in essence, the heuristics were created to help teachers decide whether VR technology is fit to use as a tool to reach the learning goals.…”

“…In the study by [31], two expert panels used two different methods-the heuristic evaluation and the cognitive walkthrough-and used heuristics derived from [23]. The result yielded a backlog for the next iteration of the VR environment, and the conclusion that both panels could draw was that the VR technology was a suitable and affordable way to conduct learning if the issues found were corrected [31].…”

“…Refs. [17,28,31] developed new sets of heuristics for different purposes. In the study by [17], they conducted a heuristic evaluation with two groups, one used Nielsen's heuristics [21] and the other used the heuristics developed through the PROMETHEUS method, which were intended for virtual reality learning contexts.…”