Benefits of Virtual Reality Training

According to a 2021 report, 75% of business leaders anticipate using Augmented or Virtual Reality by 2023. VR Training solutions have become a powerful way to revamp traditional training methods, and it’s as cost-effective

A Baylor study took 20 subjects and taught them a fire safety procedure. Half with traditional methods (video presentation and reading) and half with a VR training experience. A week after their training they were all given a memory test with mock scenarios, and 70% of the VR group performed the right sequence of steps compared to 20% of the video group.

With VR, virtual environments can house as many pieces of hardware at whatever scale you’d like all at the same cost. Especially once a framework has been developed, adding new procedures, objects, or environments to your training can be designed and deployed within a few days.

Another one of the benefits of VR training is the ability for trainees to learn what they need to at their pace. If a certain training scenario is a challenge, it’s easy to reset a scenario from the beginning. If a trainee is confident in a process, they can jump to a final procedure test.

Virtual Reality allows for a risk-free environment, allowing learners to prepare themselves and train in these stressful situations without the possibility of danger.

During a VR experience, trainees can be exposed to stressful situations in safe conditions. Over time, these experiences reduce the stress or fear response of that stimuli, allowing learners to gain confidence in real scenarios. The increased multi-sensory aspect of an immersive experience can be incredibly similar to real-life stressors. In addition, there exists the ability to have controlled exposure of these situations based on the learner’s own limits.

As more sophisticated data collecting methods are being developed, such as eye or facial tracking, more metrics can be used to understand how people are reacting to VR training. This is probably most sought after in soft skills training, where emotional input plays a larger role.

VR headsets can be implemented remotely, greatly reducing the requirement for in-person training.

++++++++++++++
More on virtual reality training in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=Virtual+reality+training