Nursing students’ VR avatars-Experience of expanding imagination and algorithmic implementation through virtual patient gestures: from the perspective of nursing art

Objectives This study is the first study to explore the experience of expanding the imagination and algorithmicization of nursing students through VR avatar-virtual patient gestures from the perspective of nursing as a practical art. This is a qualitative and descriptive study to specifically investigate the learner s imagination and embodiment through the interaction gesture between VR avatars and virtual patients, and to deeply explore the clinical environment and experience extended to real patients.&#x0D; Methods According to the research purpose, from April 2021 to June 2021, 15 nursing college students who had both virtual and real patient nursing practice training experiences by using the VR practice training practice training program and completing clinical practice courses were intentionally sampled (purposive sampling) was selected. Data were collected through focus group interviews and in-depth personal interviews that elicit a rich understanding of participants experiences and beliefs, and analyzed using inductive analysis methods of qualitative research methods. Therefore, it was analyzed using a qualitative content analysis method to find and interpret the characteristic meaning, themes, and rules of the data.&#x0D; Results Analysis Results 1. The study participants were able to have metacognition through spatial imagination through the design of the embodied virtual environment, and through this, they were able to materialize and individualize the physical environment in clinical practice education. 2. Research participants imagined a virtual therapeutic relationship through the individual gestures of VR avatar-virtual patients, and extended it to the meaning of artistic actions given by their gestures to clinical patients. 3. The study participants embodied the nursing algorithm while experiencing the changing monitor of the virtual patient, audiovisually, and extended it to a cooperative relationship for clinical application. 4. Research participants found identity through individual and creative nursing needs in the interaction between avatar-virtual patient, and this expanded to genuine care that understood the individual as a unique person in the clinical process.&#x0D; Conclusions This study is the first study to explore the imagination and embodiment of learners through VR at the time when the VR virtual nursing online practice program is expanding due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the necessity of VR virtual nursing-related research was presented. If the development of a program that has an algorithm that can elicit the user s emotions and receive feedback and implements the avatar-virtual patient gesture in the VR environment in detail as it is in reality, it is believed that users rich imagination and interpretation will be further improved. In addition, the instructor will have to apply an educational method that can freely describe the user s imagination and subjective interpretation that exists in the moment through gestures. To that end, the evaluation criteria of VR virtual nursing education program should be removed from the rubric that separates grades and ranks, and the pass- fail method should be introduced to reduce the burden on learners and help them to draw their own gestures that reveal their unique colors in a free environment. something to do. It is expected that research on effective practice models to discover nursing gestures as art based on the embodied behavioral patterns between avatar-virtual patient-clinical patient is expected.