Enhancing anatomy learning through collaborative VR? An advanced investigation

Common techniques for anatomy education in medicine include lectures and cadaver dissection, as well as the use of replicas. However, recent advances in virtual reality (VR) technology have led to the development of specialized VR tools for teaching, training, and other purposes. The use of VR technology has the potential to greatly enhance the learning experience for students. These tools offer highly interactive and engaging learning environments that allow students to inspect and interact with virtual 3D anatomical structures repeatedly, intuitively, and immersively. Additionally, multi-user VR environments can facilitate collaborative learning, which has the potential to enhance the learning experience even further. However, the effectiveness of collaborative learning in VR has not been adequately explored. Therefore, we conducted two user studies, each with $n_{1,2}=33$ participants, to evaluate the effectiveness of virtual collaboration in the context of anatomy learning, and compared it to individual learning. For our two studies, we developed a multi-user VR anatomy learning application using UE4. Our results demonstrate that our VR Anatomy Atlas offers an engaging and effective learning experience for anatomy, both individually and collaboratively. However, we did not find any significant advantages of collaborative learning in terms of learning effectiveness or motivation, despite the multi-user group spending more time in the learning environment. In fact, motivation tended to be slightly lower. Although the usability was rather high for the single-user condition, it tended to be lower for the multi-user group in one of the two studies, which may have had a slightly negative effect. However, in the second study, the usability scores were similarly high for both groups. The absence of advantages for collaborative learning may be due to the more complex environment and higher cognitive load. In consequence, more research into collaborative VR learning is needed to determine the relevant factors promoting collaborative learning in VR and the settings in which individual or collaborative learning in VR is more effective, respectively.