Virtual Reality Training for Police Officers: A Comparison of Training Responses in VR and Real-life Training 3 51 to prepare them for duty (Di Nota & Huhta, 2019; Kleygrewe et al., 2022). Training modalities such as RL SBT and VR SBT should therefore elicit physical and psychological training responses that expose officers to experiences they may have in the field. Physical training responses such as heart rate and level of physical activity give insights into the cardiovascular demands and amount of movement required during the training. Eliciting physical training responses is relevant because police officers are required to perform under high physical strain (Andersen et al., 2016; Baldwin et al., 2019) and benefit from experiencing this type of strain in training. Similarly, psychological training responses such as mental effort and perceived stress (Houtman & Bakker, 1989; Zijlstra, 1993) provide insights into the cognitive processes that trainees experience during the training. For instance, according to attentional control theory (Eysenck et al., 2007), investing mental effort is a compensatory strategy to negate the influence of stress and anxiety on performance and has been shown to provide a potentially effective strategy for police officers after training in high-anxiety conditions (Nieuwenhuys & Oudejans, 2011). Therefore, training modalities such as RL SBT and VR SBT should provoke psychological responses to familiarize police officers with the influence of perceived stress and mental effort in training. While research has extensively investigated RL SBT in police (e.g., Andersen et al., 2016; Baldwin et al., 2021; Cushion, 2022; Jenkins et al., 2021), insights into physical and psychological training responses to VR SBT are sparse. Understanding these training responses to VR SBT enhances the use of VR in police and provides information on how VR SBT differs from RL SBT to determine where the two modalities could complement each other to improve current training practices. As VR is a fairly new training tool in policing, police officers are likely to encounter VR as a training modality for the first time. Some officers may find it easy to be immersed and engaged from the start, others may have difficulties adjusting to the virtual environment and require additional training time in VR to become sufficiently immersed and engaged. It is likely that overall knowledge about and frequent use of technology, as well as prior experience with VR, may make it easier for police officers to engage with VR as a training tool (Pletz, 2021). Other factors such as being prone to cybersickness or experiencing other adverse effects may negatively influence the way in which police officers experience and engage with VR (Weech et al., 2019). Yet, little is currently known about how police officers engage with VR as a training technology and whether specific protocols should be in place to make VR SBT more efficient and effective for police officers. Investigating factors such as sense of presence (i.e., the feeling of ‘being there’ in the virtual environment; Lessiter et al., 2001), cybersickness, and user characteristics related to technology affinity may specify how VR training can be adjusted to engage police officers and consequently improve the application of VR in police.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTk4NDMw