Evaluating an Education Program That Incorporated Virtual Reality for Teaching Aggression Management: A Pre‐Post Pilot Study With Nursing Students

ABSTRACT Aim This paper presents a pilot study evaluating the acceptability, feasibility and effectiveness of an education program incorporating virtual reality for teaching aggression management among final‐year undergraduate nursing students at one university in Western Australia. Background Virtual reality can be useful for simulating high‐risk clinical situations without exposing nursing students to the potential consequences of encountering the event in the real world. As such, virtual reality is useful when incorporated into education on the prevention and management of aggression, preparing students to be industry‐ready. However, there is a gap in the literature regarding the use of virtual reality in teaching in this area of the curriculum. Design This is a pilot study that used a quantitative pre‐ and post‐education survey design. Methods Nursing students completed pre‐education surveys, participated in an educational program that incorporated virtual reality (VR) to teach aggression management and then completed post‐education surveys. Results The participants ( n = 11) completed both the pre‐ and post‐education surveys, as well as provided qualitative responses. The findings showed that the education program was effective in increasing nursing students' confidence in managing aggression ( p > 0.022). Participants also reported that the use of virtual reality was realistic to simulate the aggressive clinical scenario ( M = 6.18, SD = 0.75), to stimulate experiential learning to manage aggressive persons ( M = 6.18, SD = 0.60) and that the debrief helped them to reflect and consolidate their learning ( M = 6.36, SD = 0.67). They also reported that the Virtual Reality Aggression Management education program was more effective than traditional didactic methods of teaching this subject area ( M = 6.45, SD = 0.52). Conclusions The findings of this pilot study will be further explored and developed based on the findings of this pilot work. Further research will be conducted with a larger scale of nursing and other healthcare students.