Efficacy of AR Haptic Simulation for Nursing Student Education

In this study we examine the effectiveness of using AR haptic simulation as a tool for nursing students to learn physical attributes related to diseases, as well as testing with the simulation rather than pen & paper. We utilize edema, a medical condition that causes swelling in the body's tissues, as an example the students can learn and be tested on. The simulation takes advantage of the Magic Leap and Geomagic Touch as the AR headset and haptic device of choice. Students use these technologies to see different examples of legs that have varying degrees of edema in a 3D space and use the Geomagic Touch to feel the virtual leg. When pressing upon the leg, the object has deformation capabilities which allow the user to see and feel the impressions made upon the skin. We tested this under four different conditions, a desktop 2D version with haptics disabled and enabled, and an AR 3D version with haptics disabled and enabled. We tested these conditions on 8 different subjects, with four being non-nursing professionals, and the other four being from Kent State University (KSU) College of Nursing (CoN). The results showed that qualitatively the subjects felt that the desktop haptics version was the best, however quantitatively the results showed that the subjects scored the highest during the desktop no haptics version.