A New Reality: The Influence Virtual Reality Has in Different Areas of Education
Persuasive Essay
Vincent Yang
From the moment virtual reality equipment hit the consumer market, VR transformed the video game experience for users forever. However, what many people do not realize is that virtual reality has great potential in many more areas than just gaming. For example, virtual reality could be used in medical training for surgery, military training, law enforcement practice, and school education purposes. There are uncounted fields that virtual reality can blend in faultlessly without any discord. Psychology professor, Rizzo Albert says, "Virtual reality has undergone a transition in the past few years that has taken it out of the realm of an expensive toy and into that of functional technology" (Rizzo 134). Virtual reality is more than a gaming innovation, as virtual reality innovation presents endless potential outcomes in the education world, giving important assets in an immense number of fields today.
Virtual reality's simulated training functions are used in social and military training in many different ways. There are many advantages of virtual reality military training, including the ability to practice military maneuvers in a risk-free environment, and the flexibility that virtual reality can bring to virtual reality battlefields. Virtual reality can change any condition inside the virtual reality battlefields, and "participants can modify enemy capabilities, terrain, weather, and weapon systems" (Hormann). For example, as Hormann explains, the military can create a completely accurate historical battle simulation, as was the case when "the Institute for Defense Analyses re-created the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment Offensive conducted in Iraq during Operation Desert Storm." The soldiers who were in the real battle affirmed the "extreme accuracy of the event's depiction and the feeling of reliving the battle" brought by the virtual reality battlefields (Hormann). Jeffrey Hormann in his article, "Virtual reality: the future of law enforcement training," gives virtual reality a very high affirmation and evaluation, saying, "virtual reality holds great potential for accurate review and analysis of real-world situations, which would be difficult to accomplish by any other method" Virtual reality’s possibility is way above other any method and it keeps evolving.
Even virtual reality military training is the only simulation of the real wars and recreating a new battlefield based on the data collected from monitoring equipment, the sensory immersion will flood the users, and the virtual reality military training will hold their attention ultimately. The national government organization, DOD, is already preparing to put virtual reality military training to practical use through allowing soldiers to practice survival skills that will prepare these individuals for the dangers of a real battlefield(Hormann). Virtual reality military training can develop military soldiers' performance without the risks involved with real-world simulations.
While virtual reality's importance and its ability have been shown in the military education, it's not only limited in military training, as virtual reality is also used in law enforcement, achieving excellent results. For example, "pursuit driving, firearms training, high-risk incident management, incident re-creation, crime scene processing" (Hormann), and many other law enforcement areas benefit greatly from virtual reality. Virtual reality can improve shooting test systems. For example, a two-dimensional training system called the Firearms Training System, has restricted intuitive abilities because of its limited capabilities. A virtual reality system could quickly solve this problem. Individuals or training groups would be able to fight with aggressors or other simulations produced by computers through a three-dimensional training system created by virtual reality. Information gathered from casualties, witnesses, suspects, and crime scenes by the law enforcement officers could be used to create simulations of auto collisions, shootings, and other violations. Additionally, virtual reality can recreate the crime scene and the crime scene can revive the recollections of unfortunate witnesses, to explain violations and to indict criminals (Hormann).
Besides the vital role virtual reality plays in military training, the importance of virtual reality in the school education area can not be ignored. Virtual reality is available in most college majors and many professors' research. For example, students from the University of Oklahoma, the University of Central Oklahoma, and the University of Arizona can visit a remote cavern with antiquated stone etchings through a virtual reality system. The coordinators took several photos sewn together to make a three-dimensional view, which is known as photogrammetry. It is the first multicampus, multistate computer virtual reality class. Without leaving the classroom, this inaccessible stone cave is accessible to the students because of the virtual reality technology that has evolved over time (McMurtrie).
Virtual reality is utilized in the medical field in a short amount of time. A chain of facilities in California, the Virtual Reality Medical Center, has a virtual reality system and facility to help in the treatment of fear and phobias.The Virtual Reality Medical Center has effectively treated more than 300 patients experiencing fears and tension issues. Although some people might ask for the professional report of these applications, “ It seems clear that virtual therapy offers some genuine benefits" according to Hoffman . According to the result from the Virtual Reality Medical Center, virtual reality helps many patients train the patients' brains on how to process pain and transfer the pain to enjoyment. Virtual reality projects can enable phobic patients to beat their dread of insects, heights, flying, or speaking in public. "A specially designed program is now being used to treat post-traumatic stress disorder in survivors of the September 11 attacks" (Hoffman 60). Another example of virtual reality medical training for doctors includes learning and practicing surgical skills through virtual reality. According to the article, "Effect of virtual reality training on laparoscopic surgery: randomized controlled trial" written by serval medical professors, aptitudes in the laparoscopic medical procedure can be expanded in a significant way utilizing capability-based virtual reality experience test system training. The purpose of this experiment is to test the result of the virtual reality system on real laparoscopic surgery. These professors designed randomized controlled and double-blind trials, selecting 24 "first and second year registrars specialising in gynaecology and obstetrics" (Larsen 1253). Those doctors were speared into two groups, which are the "proficiency based virtual reality simulator training in laparoscopic salpingectomy and standard clinical education" (Larsen 1253).. The median surgery time in the virtual reality system group was 12 minutes, and in the benchmark group was 24 minutes. The virtual reality group gathered a median total score of 33 points, and the control group arrived at an overall middle rating of 23 points (Larsen 1253). From the outcomes of this logical and rigorous experiment, "The performance level of novices was increased to that of intermediately experienced laparoscopes and operation time was halved. Simulator training should be considered before trainees carry out laparoscopic procedure" (Larsen 1253). Virtual reality reveals great potential in medical training area based on this experiment. There is not doubt that virtual reality would improve the work efficiency and operation quality of doctors in the future.
Virtual reality is not limited to video gaming or entertainment purposes, as people usually think. The parents need to have a better understanding of virtual reality capabilities beyond gaming tools, and it is the time for people to reconsider and take a fresh look at virtual reality because of the amount of medical learning, military training, and other education applications VR can enhance. Virtual reality's importance is emerging from unthinkable fields. The experience people received from the three-dimensional world virtual reality created is much more exciting and realistic than pictures, videos, or any two-dimensional world. "More usable, useful, and accessible VR systems that can uniquely target a wide range of physical, psychological, social, and cognitive human issues and research questions" (Rizzo 134) will have more opportunity to influence human society.
Annotated Bibliography
Hoffman, Hunter G. “Virtual-Reality Therapy.” Vol. 291, no. 2, 2004, pp. 58–65. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/26060647. Accessed 6 Nov. 2019.
This resource provides many examples about virtual reality application in medical therapy and it tells me the three-dimensional world virtual reality could create is very powerful and useful. I was able to find the function of virtual reality in medical therapy area. It is very useful for my essay.
Hormann, Jeffrey S. "Virtual reality: the future of law enforcement training." The FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, vol.64, no.7, Jul. 1995, p. 7+. Gale In Context: High School www.link.gale.com/apps/doc/A17281089/GPS?u=va_p_wakef_s&sid=GPS&xid=dfaf478b. Accessed 18 Sep. 2019.
Hormann provides the information about the application of virtual reality in military training and law enforcement training. I could use this source as my foundation of my claim in the essay.
Larsen, Christian R, et al. “Effect of Virtual Reality Training on Laparoscopic Surgery: Randomised Controlled Trial.” BMJ: British Medical Journal, vol. 338, no
. 7705, 2009, pp. 1253–1256. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/41552059. Accessed 16 Jan. 2020.
This resource involves an experiment some medical professors made to test the influence of virtual reality on Laparoscopic Surgery. It is very useful to me because it gives very detailed information about the experiment they made which would support the statements I have in the essay.
McMurtrie, Beth. "Virtual Reality Comes to the Classroom: The possibilities for creating new ways of learning are wide-ranging, but so are the challenges." The Chronicle of Higher Education, vol.65, no.34, 7 Jun 2019, p. A8+. Gale In Context: Opposing Viewpoints,link.gale.com/apps/doc/A589967479/GPS? u=va_p_wakef_s&sid=GPS&xid=7e2d45f3.Accessed 17 Sep. 2019.
This resource goes into the real education area at school. It provides two examples from two national wilde university using virtual reality for school programs or students’ experiment. It is reliable because it is from university’s reports.
Rizzo, Albert A., and Maria T. Schultheis. “Expanding the Boundaries of Psychology: The Application of Virtual Reality.” Psychological Inquiry, vol. 13, no. 2, 2002, pp. 134–140. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1449171. Accessed 6 Nov. 2019.
This resource tells me the attitude and view psychology professors have on virtual reality. They made some valuable comments on the application of virtual reality in psychology which I can add into my essay.