Virtual Reality Instructional Design in Orthopedic Physical Therapy Education

Virtual Reality Instructional Design in Orthopedic Physical Therapy Education: A Randomized Controlled Trial Comparing the Effects of Virtual Reality With Role-Playing Learning

The objective of this study is to assess the effects of virtual reality instructional design on physical therapy students' clinical decision-making skills, as compared with a traditional method of instruction with the same content and duration of exposure.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Virtual Reality
• Intervention / Treatment: Other: Virtual reality instructional design; Other: Role-playing instructional design

Detailed Description

An online random number generator will be used to randomize students into one of two groups: virtual reality instruction or role-paying instruction. All students will complete self-reported measures of clinical decision-making and metacognitive awareness prior to receiving their allocated instruction. While completing allocated instruction (either virtual reality or role-playing), measures of diagnostic accuracy and diagnostic efficiency will be collected. Following virtual reality or role-playing instruction, all included subjects will complete post-test measures of clinical decision-making ,metacognitive awareness, and engagement. One week later, all included subjects will be assessed on a musculoskeletal objective structured clinical examination (mOSCE).

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 59
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• United States
  • Virginia
    • Winchester, Virginia, United States, 22601
      • Shenandoah University

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 22 years and older (Adult, Older Adult)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No
• Genders Eligible for Study: All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Students enrolled in their first year of physical therapy school at SU

Exclusion Criteria:

• Students enrolled in their second or third year of physical therapy school at SU

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Health Services Research
• Allocation: Randomized
• Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
• Masking: None (Open Label)

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Virtual reality instructional design; Completion of virtual reality simulation of an outpatient physical therapy evaluation.	Other: Virtual reality instructional design; 60 minute immersive VR experience with branching method information delivery, physical therapy assessment, and diagnosis.
Active Comparator: Role-playing instructional design; Completion of traditional role-playing of a scripted outpatient physical therapy evaluation	Other: Role-playing instructional design; 60 minute traditional role-playing with standardized patient

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Change in clinical decision-making	The Clinical Decision-Making Tool (CDM-Tool), a Likert-style questionnaire with 12 items, scored on a four-point scale. A higher raw score indicates a higher level of perceived decision-making ability.	pre- and post-instructional design (immediately after completing virtual reality or role-playing)

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Change in metacognitive awareness	Metacognitive Awareness Inventory (MAI), a Likert-style questionnaire with 52-items, scored on a five-point scale. A higher raw score indicates a higher level of perceived metacognitive awareness.	pre and post-instructional design (immediately after completing virtual reality or role-playing)
Self-reported measure of engagement	Six-item, five-point Likert-style instrument. A higher raw score indicates greater level of student engagement.	Post-instruction (immediately after completing either virtual reality or role-playing experience)
Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE)	Practical examination with 2 cases, assessing a student's ability to generate hypotheses, perform tests or measures to rule-in or rule-out hypotheses, and deliver an appropriate intervention.	1 week following allocated instruction (either virtual reality or role-playing)

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Shenandoah University
• Investigators: Study Chair: Patti Berg-Poppe, PT, PhD, University of South Dakota

Publications and helpful links

General Publications

• Kleinert R, Heiermann N, Plum PS, Wahba R, Chang DH, Maus M, Chon SH, Hoelscher AH, Stippel DL. Web-Based Immersive Virtual Patient Simulators: Positive Effect on Clinical Reasoning in Medical Education. J Med Internet Res. 2015 Nov 17;17(11):e263. doi: 10.2196/jmir.5035.
• Middeke A, Anders S, Schuelper M, Raupach T, Schuelper N. Training of clinical reasoning with a Serious Game versus small-group problem-based learning: A prospective study. PLoS One. 2018 Sep 11;13(9):e0203851. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0203851. eCollection 2018.
• Middeke A, Anders S, Raupach T, Schuelper N. Transfer of Clinical Reasoning Trained With a Serious Game to Comparable Clinical Problems: A Prospective Randomized Study. Simul Healthc. 2020 Apr;15(2):75-81. doi: 10.1097/SIH.0000000000000407.

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): January 1, 2020
• Primary Completion (Actual): June 1, 2021
• Study Completion (Actual): August 1, 2021

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: February 8, 2021
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: February 11, 2021
• First Posted (Actual): February 15, 2021

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): September 21, 2021
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: September 20, 2021
• Last Verified: September 1, 2021

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Other Study ID Numbers: USD Paper 3

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: NO

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No