ArticleBMC medical education2026
Virtual vs. standardized patients - a preliminary comparison of advantages and disadvantages of a VR and a conventional learning unit for medical students in child and adolescent psychiatry.
Article in BMC medical education, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
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Abstract
backgroundConstructivist learning theories are getting more and more attention in medical education, as generating understanding and knowledge through personal experience seems to be promising. In child and adolescent psychiatry, simulation-based training is challenging, as students’ access to real young patients is limited and there are no standardized patients of that age. Hence, we see Virtual Reality (VR) presenting virtual patients as a means to address these issues. VR enables the standardization of personal encounters in an adaptive learning environment that is cost-effective, scalable and applicable in a standardized way for different learners. Even though virtual patients have become more and more popular in medical education, less studies investigated the strengths and weaknesses of those compared to conventional standardized patients.
methodsWe present a within-subjects study with 50 students and compare our virtual patient system, a VR application that allows student to engage in a conversation with a virtual patient, with a conventional standardized patient unit. Students participated in small groups of up to five students alternately in the two units and filled out questionnaires regarding the estimated learning success, believability, empathy, and motivation subsequently. One student at a time conducted the interview with the virtual or standardized patient, while the others took on an observational role. Finally, all students were interviewed comparing both experiences.
resultsResults showed that the standardized patients were rated significantly higher in all dependent variables. Qualitative results highlight an inappropriate speech recognition system as main reason why the virtual patient system proved to be inferior. Furthermore, we identified aspects that demonstrate advantages as well as disadvantages for both units each.
conclusionsIn its current technical implementation, the virtual patient system could not match standardized patients in interactional and affective dimensions. Nonetheless, we identified several aspects, that could be beneficial over or supplementary to the use of standardized patients. Furthermore, we derived implications for the future design of virtual patient systems and in which situation they should be considered.
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