Sometimes, people are put into a situation that tests them to their limits. But most of us will never know those moments – and what we’re truly capable of.
Training in VR has been around for a while. Pilots navigating virtual aeroplanes without being in danger of crashing a real jet, privates dropped into combat environments, nervous drivers learning how to operate behind the wheel without having to be in a real vehicle. Even Walmart has a VR environment, dunking staff into frantic Black Friday situations to ready them for the real thing.
The idea of these 3D digital simulations is to reflect real life, immersing users in environments designed to prepare them for potential scenarios, or even disasters. But it all occurs in a low-risk setting that ensures no damage is done to expensive equipment, or more importantly, to people themselves. The tech’s been around for decades in varying states of quality, with VR opening up a whole range of scenarios. Including dangerous, complex or expensive ones – that might never occur in real life, but allow trainees to be prepared.
The current state of VR training
Yet many companies are only just beginning to use it, with many maintaining a view of VR as a video game, even if it is interactive and immersive once users have their headsets on and controllers in their hands.
But the tide is changing. According to Accenture's Immersive Learning report, over 90% of executives surveyed think existing training needs to be more effective for their workforce, while 47% of decision makers think they’ll miss out on impactful training outcomes if they don't invest in XR. Now, 59% of organisations even expect to make a significant or moderate investment in XR learning in the next two years.
VR has proven itself for dangerous and complex task training, but can it really be that effective when it comes to training people in soft skills? PwC’s ‘Seeing is Believing’ report, based on the company’s VR pilot, says it can. It showed that VR training leads to higher levels of emotional engagement, increased recall and superior behavioural changes. They even predict that VR training will contribute $294 billion to the global economy by 2030.
Is VR training effective?
PwC’s research showed that while completing VR diversity and inclusion training:
- V-learners completed training 4 times faster than classroom training.
- V-learners felt 3.75 times more emotionally connected to the content than classroom learners and 2.3 times more connected than e-learners.
- Three-quarters of learners surveyed said that during the VR course they had a wake-up-call moment and realised that they were not as inclusive as they thought they were.
- V-learners were 4 times more focused during training than their e-learning peers and 1.5 times more focused than their classroom colleagues.
On top of these stats, a memory recall study by The University of Maryland published a paper that found people remember information better when it’s presented to them in a virtual environment. The study showed an 8.8% improvement in recall accuracy when participants used VR headsets, and 38 out of the 40 participants said they preferred the VR headset to the computer interface.
Curious about starting VR training?
British start-up Sublime is going a step further, creating teaching solutions that collect data about learners and the process of learning. Martin McDonnell, Sublime’s chief executive officer, said in a PwC interview: “We want to learn how the learners learn. VR gives us a trackability and measurability of what people do when they’re learning.” This helps with ongoing improvement of VR training development.
VR training is ideal for scenarios that are too dangerous or unpredictable to practise in real life, from creating virtual operating theatres to risky scenarios in emergency response situations – and for those kinds of companies, there are plenty of precedents.
For most companies though, VR could be used for everything from entering high-pressure negotiations through to diversity and inclusion training. PwC has acted on the results of their study, using VR to drive behavioural change with training sessions for up to 1000 of their colleagues a day.
Plus, it’s less expensive than you might think to do VR training – and in fact PwC says it’s the most cost-effective way of learning on a large scale. At 375 learners, VR training achieved cost parity with classroom learning.
Here are a few tips to help you get going on your V-learning journey.
1. Redefine your training
Rather than transferring your existing training into VR, think about how you can try something new that suits an immersive environment better – and meets your business goals.
2. Go beyond the tech
A combination of VR and reality might be the most effective approach. Three Montreal university researchers tested how effective strategic memory training was in older adults, and found that when training is complemented by practice in an immersive virtual environment, information retention was better – and even suggested it could help slow the progression of Alzheimers.
3. Get feedback
After training, measure results with employees so you can keep refining and improving your v-learning offerings.
Looking to the future of VR training
Amitabh Varshney, professor of computer science and dean of the College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences at UMD, says, “By showing that virtual reality can help improve recall, it opens the door to further studies that look at the impact of VR-based training modules at all levels—from elementary school children learning astronomy to trauma residents acquiring the latest knowledge in lifesaving procedures.”
As it stands, VR training is proven to be a safe, reliable and effective tool for levelling up our skills – and it’s set to change how we all gain knowledge.
