Mixed reality for midwifery students: a qualitative study of the technology’s perceived appropriateness in the classroom

Background
Virtual reality and mixed reality have shown great promise in training and education across a range of professional and pedagogical domains. The perception of such technologies by midwifery students remains an underexplored area of study.

Methods
Thirty-three MSc midwifery students received a demonstration of a proof-of-concept mixed reality lesson about the foetal descent during labour. Twelve students were subsequently interviewed about their experiences, and
thematic analysis was used to analyse the qualitative dataset produced by the interview transcripts.

Results
Analysis found [1] that mixed reality was viewed by the students as a valuable novelty which facilitates new insights while scaffolding prior learnings [2], that mixed reality was postulated to gel well with other learning methods and modalities such as simulation-based training, and [3] that while mixed reality was intuitive or easy to use, adaptable or customisable content should be a key consideration in immersive lesson design.

Conclusions
The study concludes that mixed reality can be a valuable supplement to existing teaching methods and tools. Students expressed optimism about mixed reality’s potential to enhance educational outcomes. While it cannot replace dialogue with a qualified instructor, mixed reality may be well suited to facilitating peer-to-peer
learning.

Clinical trial number Not applicable.