Publication
What Was The Issue?
Many law enforcement agencies around the world have started using Virtual Reality (VR) to conduct training. Yet, very little validation has been done on the effectiveness of VR training. This study examines whether VR elicits a stress response that is similar to the stress response that occurs during a realistic in-person scenario-based training (SBT).
How Did They Look at It?
The researchers recruited 31 students to participate in the in Scenario-Based Training (SBT) part of the study. These participants had salivary markers of stress (α-amylase and SIgA) taken 30 minutes before the scenario, 5 minutes before the scenario, 5 minutes after the scenario, and 30 minutes after the scenario. The participants were told that they were responding to an active shooter situation. They received a simulated radio call and then entered the scene as a responding officer. The scene had professional actors wearing moulage to simulate injuries, realistic sounding gunfire, and people screaming. The participants had to move a short distance down a hallway to the room where the attacker was located. The attacker was firing at innocent victims and turned to shoot at the participant. The participant then had to “shoot” the attacker with a blank gun.
Three hundred sixty-degree video from the SBT was then used to create a VR scenario that was identical to the SBT (the image below shows a side by side comparison). The researchers recruited 27 students to complete the VR scenario. These students went through the same testing procedure as those in the SBT.
What Did They Find?
Because the participants were not randomly assigned to conditions and completed the study at different times, it was expected that there would be differences between the groups at the outset of the study; therefore, a more sophisticated statistical model that could account for these differences was used. The technique used was a Difference in Differences or DiD model. This model found that the two groups were statistically different at the outset. Controlling for this, the model indicated that both groups experienced statistically significant increases in stress as measured by the salivary markers of stress (α-amylase and SIgA), and that both groups experienced similar increases in these markers.
So What?
Because many agencies are now starting to use VR, it is important to validate the effectiveness of VR training. Police training often attempts to prepare officers for threating situations by using stress inoculation techniques. It is, therefore, important to assess whether VR can produce stress that is similar to other training environments. This study showed that VR can produce stress effects that are similar to in-person SBT. In fact, the test here was somewhat unfair to VR. Most in-person scenarios conducted during regular training do not involve professional actors or extensive moulage. This means that the comparison here was against an idealized SBT. Yet, VR still produced similar results.
Having been involved with VR for some time now, I think that it is a valuable training tool. It is not at the point yet where it can replace all in-person training (and may never get there), but it is useful.
VR training has several advantages. For example, now that we have created the VR scenario described above, we can have individual participants (or small groups) complete the scenario whenever we want. We just put the headsets on and start training. No need to put on a big event where we have to coordinate the schedules of dozens of people, set up a location, and ensure that it is secure. Officers just come in and start training. The use of the scenario can also ensure that the training is consistent. Each officer gets the same thing every time.
There are still things that VR does not do very well. Anything that involves touching is currently a problem. For example, applying a tourniquet to an injured person is beyond the ability of VR right now. The sights on VR weapons also do not currently line-up correctly, so VR cannot be used for marksmanship training. These limitations may be eliminated in the future as the technology matures.
VR kits are also currently very expensive. All of them cost 10s of thousands of dollars. These prices will come down in the future, and there are grant programs that can be used to buy systems. It is also currently in the wild west days of VR. Many companies are starting and failing all the time. So, it is important to select a VR provider that is stable and will be around to support your system.
Even with these limitations, VR is a powerful training tool.
I’ve done both, and find that knowing Airsoft and Simumitions hurt gives you that adrenaline boost that isn’t as easy as with VR. VR , to me requires a mindset that demands it be taken seriously. But that’s just me.