Collaborative VR Anatomy Atlas Investigating Multi-user Anatomy Learning

In medical education, anatomy is typically taught through lectures, cadaver dissection, and using replicas. Advances in VR technology facilitated the development of specialized VR tools for teaching, training, and other tasks. They can provide highly interactive and engaging learning environments where students can immersively and repeatedly inspect and interact with virtual 3D anatomical structures. Moreover, multi-user VR environments can be employed for collaborative learning, which may enhance the learning experience. Concrete applications are still rare, though, and the effect of collaborative learning in VR has not been adequately explored yet. Therefore, we conducted a user study with n = 33 participants to evaluate the effectiveness of virtual collaboration on the example of anatomy learning (and compared it to individual learning). For our study, we developed an UE4-based multi-user VR anatomy learning application. Our results show that our VR Anatomy Atlas provides an engaging learning experience and is very effective for anatomy learning, individually as well as collaboratively. However, interestingly, we could not find significant advantages for collaborative learning regarding learning effectiveness or motivation, even though the multi-user group spent more time in the learning environment. Although rather high for the single-user condition, the usability tended to be lower for the multi-user group. This may be due to the more complex environment and a higher cognitive load. Thus, more research in collaborative VR for anatomy education is needed to investigate, if and how it can be employed more effectively.