Impacts of a spherical video-based virtual reality-integrated problem-based learning mode on working staff’s counseling competences in professional training

Immersing learners in authentic scenarios to prompt them to apply what they have learned to problem solving is an essential learning approach in medical and nursing education. However, nurses often do not have the opportunity to experience many specialized or emergency situations in the real world, such as providing grief counseling to terminally ill patients and their families. Therefore, this study proposed a model of Problem-Based Learning (PBL) in Virtual Reality (VR) which allowed learners to experience the sorrowful scenario of dealing with families facing a “patient nearing end of life,” and to learn grief counseling strategies. To validate the effectiveness of this learning method, a quasi-experimental design was conducted in a nurse preceptor training course in a teaching hospital. The participants were 34 nurses from a teaching hospital in Taiwan, randomly assigned to two groups; the experimental group adopted a Spherical Video-based Virtual Reality-integrated Problem-Based Learning (SVVR-PBL) model, while the control group utilized a Conventional PBL (C-PBL) model. Experimental results indicated that the SVVR-PBL model can better enhance nurses’ professional knowledge in palliative care, and supports superior memory retention. Simultaneously, in terms of attitudes toward palliative care, problem-solving orientation, and perceived value, it also significantly outperformed the C-PBL model.