ArticlePloS one2025
A qualitative examination of football players' acceptability and perceptions on the use of virtual reality in football training.
Article in PloS one, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
1 citing paper in PubMed.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
introductionVirtual reality (VR) technologies are being increasingly used for training among football teams. Despite this, limited research has examined football players' acceptability and perceptions of VR training. It is essential to understand football players' perspectives on this training approach to identify any psychological factors that may influence its uptake.
methodsA qualitative approach was adopted to explore footballers' acceptability and perceptions of VR in training. Fourteen professional and semi-professional football players completed a survey and took part in qualitative semi-structured interviews between May and October 2023. All participants were asked questions about their perspectives of the benefits and barriers of using VR for football training. The interview data was recorded and analysed using reflexive thematic analysis.
resultsThemes regarding the footballers' acceptability were interpreted within the framework of the Technology Acceptance Model. Overall, the footballers demonstrated acceptability and emphasised its potential usefulness in football training. Footballers perceived VR as being beneficial for cognitive and perceptual-motor skill training, mental preparation and pressure training through exposure to representative game-like environments, as well as providing greater training flexibility. Alongside these benefits, factors which could hinder optimal uptake were identified, including lack of accessibility, financial costs, and perceptual differences between the VR environments and the real-world.
conclusionThe present study provides insight into experienced football players' acceptability and perceptions of VR for training and suggest that VR training has potential to be accepted by football players, particularly when it is promoted to them as a flexible approach that can enhance their on-field performance.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.