RCT study comparing the effectiveness of Mixed Reality, Three‐dimensional Monoscopy, and Textbook Style Learning Tools for Anatomical Education in pre‐clinical Medicine

Abstract

This study, to our knowledge, was the first of its kind which compared the learning tools of textbook style, 3DM, and MR learning tools qualitatively and quantitatively in the short-term anatomy acquisition and retention over a month. It was found that the text-only group and 3DM group on average performed better than the MR group in the short-term only in nominal type questions. While none of the learning tools were superior or inferior for performance in spatial type and mixed type questions in the short-term. The MR group retained their performance in nominal and spatial type knowledge after a month, while the text-only group retained their performance only in spatial type knowledge and 3DM group was unable to retain performance in nominal or spatial type knowledge after a month. The ability to focus using the MR learning tool on average was less than the 3DM group. Despite this, the open responses from participants emphasised the use of the MR learning tool compared to the textbook style and 3DM learning tools had improved engagement, immersion, excitement, enjoyment, and was easier to understand the text and 2D images. Furthermore, exploring the EEG BIS data, the participants in the MR group also averaged a higher awakeness level during the learning session compared to the text-only and 3DM groups.