Exploring Nursing Students' Experiences in a Brief Virtual Reality-Enhanced Workshop: Cross-Sectional Exploratory Study.

Background: There is limited evidence on how brief, optional virtual reality (VR) experiences can be used with first-semester nursing students as experiential learning strategies to support understanding of foundational nursing concepts, outside of mandatory coursework or full-scale simulations. Additionally, little is known about students' and teachers' perceptions of VR as a low-stakes, supplemental learning strategy introduced early in nursing education. Examining these experiences can provide insight into the pedagogical value and scalability of VR-enhanced learning within the formal nursing curriculum. Objective: This study explored students' and teachers' experiences of a brief, optional, VR-enhanced workshop offered outside mandatory coursework in first-semester nursing education and described students' perceptions of cognitive, social, and teaching presence. Methods: This was a cross-sectional evaluation at a Swedish public university. A single-session workshop, co-designed by nursing teachers and the university library makerspace (implementation context), combined brief headset exposures (sympathetic arousal via a short roller coaster experience and parasympathetic engagement via a short guided meditation), peer vital-sign practice (instructional aid), small-group synthesis, and a guided debrief aligned with the community of inquiry (CoI) framework. Immediately after the session, students completed a demographics questionnaire, a 7-item workshop-specific VR-perception set, and the 34-item CoI instrument, plus 2 open-ended items; teachers provided short reflections. Analyses were descriptive for quantitative data and summative content analysis of open-ended responses. Participants included 11.9% (16/134) of the invited first-semester students (mean age 25 years, SD 5.1; 15/16, 93.8% women; 6/16, 37.5% with prior VR exposure) and 3 teachers. Results: Most students agreed or strongly agreed that VR enhanced analysis and observation (12/16, 75%), exploration of phenomena (14/16, 87.5%), conceptual understanding and engagement (13/16, 81.3%), teacher support (13/16, 81.3%), and relevance to the session (14/16, 87.5%). CoI ratings indicated moderately positive perceptions (total mean 3.36, SD 0.44 on a 5-point scale), with cognitive presence rated the highest (mean 3.48, SD 0.41) and exploration being the top subdomain (mean 4.48, SD 0.49); design and organization and facilitation were similar (mean 3.42, SD 0.55 each), whereas direct instruction was rated lower (mean 2.88, SD 0.92). Open-ended remarks described links between theory and embodied experience and noted practical challenges. Conclusions: This study used an early, optional format; the results showed that brief, contrastive VR exposures paired with scaffolded inquiry and a guided debrief were perceived as pedagogically valuable for exploring foundational physiological concepts, while also highlighting feasibility and logistical considerations for routine teaching. Findings are preliminary and reflect session-level perceptions from a small, self-selected sample; nevertheless, they suggest that structured, low-stakes VR may serve as a feasible supplemental strategy in first-semester nursing education, with implications for potential scalability.