Bringing accessible, low cost VR to Health and Social Care

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The world has changed as a result of CV-19 and technological advances have yet to support remote working and learning. Students deserve 1st class learning experiences that can be accessed remotely. Video conferencing training is passive, ineffective and fatigue inducing. Traditional click-through eLearning is failing (it has a really high dropout rate). Further innovation is also needed to develop a genuinely new pedagogy of soft skills learning provision; an area widely recognised as being underserved and yet one most employers agree matters as much, if not more, that hard skills. Success requires the cultural shift initiated by CV-19 to be sustained post Pandemic and for that to happen the service offering must be genuinely disruptive.The purpose of this project is to explore and evaluate new audiences for virtual reality (VR) by understanding the impact and benefits VR could have on the delivery of the health and social care curriculum in Higher and Further education (HE/FE).Today, the NHS employs 1.4M people and social care 1.6M, this equates to 10% of the UK's working population. Soft skills are integral to health and social care education and training. This is currently delivered using roleplay, 'on the job' learning and passive e-learning. All fail to sufficiently equip learners with the skills and resilience to thrive in the sector.The proposed feasibility study seeks to co-design, with educators, 360 simulation interactions and three-dimensional immersive experiences as part of the soft skills learning journey to develop and test a cost effective and scalable, realistic (emotionally engaging), mobile application and, crucially, impactful learning experiences (higher completion rates, improved knowledge retention) and is central to the business being able to leverage what is a global Immersive content which is not yet part of everyday media consumption. The feasibility aims to move VR training from the experimental and novel to the everyday.Project outputs include a tested demonstrator, new processes and confirmation of product design. The company will complete an evaluation study, comparing the solution with traditional learning and uncover HE/FE motivations for immersive technology adoption and understand how immersive technology can impact educational audience behaviours leading to improved learning.