Factors Influencing Nursing Students’ Immersive Virtual Reality Media Technology-Based Learning

Background/objectives: This study aims to identify the effects of cognitive and emotional variables related to immersive virtual reality media technology on learning for nursing students. Methods/Statistical analysis: The subjects of this study were 121 nursing students from a university in area D. After experiential learning with virtual reality from 6–8 June 2019, data was collected through questionnaires. For virtual reality learning, VIVE’s hTC VIVE ECO CE model was used. The collected data was analyzed using the IBM SPSS 26.0 program. Multiple Regression Analysis was used to analyze the factors influencing the subject’s virtual reality learning effects. Findings: The learning effects of the virtual reality medium had a statistically significant positive correlation with the virtual reality technology recognition, sensory immersion, realism, learning satisfaction, learning necessity, and continuous use intention (p < 0.001) scores. In personality traits, only Openness, Extraversion (p < 0.01), and Conscientiousness (p < 0.05) had a statistically significant positive correlation. As a result of regression analysis, the explanatory power of the learning effect of the virtual reality medium was 63.9% (F = 53.61, p < 0.001), with learning satisfaction, sensory immersion, continuous use intention, and Extraversion being significant influencing factors (p < 0.05). Improvements/Applications: This study is meaningful in the sense that it provided strategic implications for the teaching and learning method of virtual reality technology-based learning by considering the insights necessary to develop a learning program using virtual reality technology, according to the characteristics of virtual reality technology, and the learner’s cognitive and psychological variables.