Active learning is an educational framework in which students actively engage in the learning process rather than passively receive information. Over the past few decades, virtual reality (VR) has been developed and introduced as an active learning tool for anatomy and for immersive clinical interactions with virtual patients across various biomedical disciplines. However, the development of VR for physiological applications and its assessment of efficacy are in their infancy. A new VR application for physiology developed by iXRLabs recently allows participants to explore various body systems. The objective of the study was to assess the effectiveness of the neurophysiology iXRLabs VR animation to reinforce Neurophysiology concepts among Physiology graduate students (n=19) and first-year dental students (n=16). We hypothesized that there would be moderate, statistically significant gains in scores between the pre- and posttest assessments. Thirty-five (n=35) students who had completed the neurophysiology lectures in their respective programs volunteered to be part of this study. Participants took a five-question pre- and post-VR quiz to assess their mastery of the concepts and knowledge score gains before and after the VR lesson. Additionally, their perceptions about the experience were assessed. The quiz consisted of 5 questions; participants received 1 point for each correct answer and 0 for each incorrect answer. The average pretest score was 3.3 (SD=1.1), and the average posttest score was 3.9 (SD=1.3), resulting in a score gain of 0.51 points. The paired t-test indicates a statistically significant improvement from PRE to POST (p = 0.03). To the question “how easy did you find the experience?” participants rated the experience as 82/100 (SD= 19.5). More than 85% of the participants reported the experience was favorable or very favorable. Participants overwhelmingly described the VR learning experience as interesting, useful, enjoyable, and enlightening, with nearly half also finding it fulfilling. A minority reported challenges—about 20% noted overstimulation, and only a small proportion rated the experience as cumbersome, taxing, or confusing, suggesting generally high acceptability with limited usability concerns. Overall, the VR neurophysiology module was rated highly engaging, useful, and effective for learning, with improvements from pre- to post-assessment and predominantly positive user perceptions. At the same time, only a few participants reported minor technical and comfort issues. Several aspects need to be considered before implementing VR in physiology education, including, but not limited to, financial considerations, access to VR developers, and commercially available VR animations for physiology, institutional and IT support, existing and emergent firewalls, and internet restrictions, among others. The authors will provide tips and suggestions for other educators based on lessons learned from this and other VR educational projects, as well as future directions for technology development and classroom implementation. This work was funded by the "American Physiological Society Teaching Career Enhancement Award 2024." This abstract was presented at the American Physiology Summit 2026 and is only available in HTML format. There is no downloadable file or PDF version. The Physiology editorial board was not involved in the peer review process.
Paleville et al. (Fri,) studied this question.