Chapter 1 18 In Chapter 3, we examine physical and psychological training responses of experienced police officers to VR training and scenario-based real-life training. We provide factors, such as participant characteristics and VR experiences (e.g., the experience of negative effects), that influence the psychological training responses to VR training. In Chapter 4, we evaluate the effectiveness of adding a pain stimulus to VR training and a 2D training simulator to increase their representativeness. We explore the influence of the pain stimulus on physical and psychological training responses, as well as sense of presence in VR (i.e., the feeling of truly “being there” in the virtual environment). In Chapter 5, we assess the use of VR’s after-action review features to enhance the learning efficacy of police officers. We explore whether reviewing the training performance from various perspectives (e.g., bird’s eye view, police officer view, suspect view) and with addition of VR features (e.g., showing the line of fire of the service weapon) enhance the learning efficacy of police officers. Collectively, the chapters aim to provide insights into the implementation and application of VR training into police practice. In line with the cover of this thesis, the chapters are structured in such a way that they show the journey from real-life practices to training with VR technology — first highlighting the strengths and challenges of current (real-life) training practices, then comparing real-life training and VR training, until finally demonstrating how VR training can be utilized to enhance representativeness and learning for police. This thesis addresses police training on a European scale. The studies have been conducted with seven European law enforcement agencies, with particularly close collaborations with the Dutch National Police and the Stadtpolizei Zürich (City Police Zurich, Switzerland). The epilogue summarizes the findings and implications of each chapter. It describes how VR training can be implemented to improve and supplement current training practices and provides an overview for the practical application of VR training in police practice. Lastly, the epilogue describes how theory and practice connect to advance the developments of VR as a training technology for police.
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