Chapter 3 58 (originally anxiety) have been frequently used to quantify self-perceived psychophysiological experiences during training and complex police tasks (e.g., Giessing et al., 2019; Nieuwenhuys et al., 2009; Oudejans, 2008; Wilson et al., 2007). Mental effort Subjective ratings of mental effort were obtained using the VAS ‘Rating Scale for Mental Effort’ (RSME; Zijlstra, 1993) at the end of the RL and VR SBT (once after all VR scenarios were completed). The RSME was assessed on a VAS from 1 to 150. According to Zijlstra (1993), the RSME has adequate test-retest reliability with correlation coefficients between 0.78 in work settings and 0.88 in laboratory settings. Perceived stress Subjective ratings of perceived stress were obtained using the VAS for anxiety (adjusted to ‘stress’ instead of anxiety; Houtman & Bakker, 1989) at the end of the RL SBT and VR SBT (after all VR scenarios were completed). Perceived stress refers to the participants’ subjective experience of stress during the training scenarios. The stress scale was assessed on a VAS from 1 to 100. The original anxiety scale has a fair validity and test-retest reliability with correlation coefficients ranging between 0.60 and 0.78 (Houtman & Bakker, 1989). Experiences in VR Sense of presence The experiences in the virtual environment were assessed using the ITC-Sense of Presence Inventory (ITC-SOPI; Lessiter et al., 2001). Each item of the inventory is rated on a Likert-scale from 1 ‘strongly disagree’ to 5 ‘strongly agree’. The ITC-SOPI results in four factors. Spatial presence refers to the sense of being part of the virtual environment. Engagement refers to the feeling of involvement with the content and feeling psychologically engaged. Ecological validity or naturalness refers to the tendency of perceiving the virtual environment as life-like and natural. Negative effects refer to the experience of any adverse physiological experiences such as dizziness or headaches (Lessiter et al., 2001). According to Lessiter et al. (2001), the ITC-SOPI has good internal consistency. The Cronbach alpha coefficient for spatial presence was .94, for engagement .89, for ecological validity .76, and for negative effect .77. In the current study, the Cronbach alpha coefficient for the factor spatial presence was .89, for the factor engagement .80, for the factor ecological validity .74, and for the factor negative effect .83.
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