Krista Hoek

Transforming implicit experiences into explicit learning opportunities: developing and implementing virtual reality-simulated experiences for communication in healthcare education.

Communication skills are essential for safe and compassionate healthcare, yet many aspects of professional communication are learned implicitly through experience. This creates an important challenge: how can healthcare professionals develop insight into the impact of their words, actions, and behaviours when such learning experiences are not readily accessible?

This thesis explores how virtual reality (VR) can create meaningful experiential learning opportunities to train communication skills in healthcare. Across eight studies, VR-based educational experiences were developed and evaluated for high-stress communication, therapeutic communication through patient perspectives, and team culture in the operating room.

A central approach was the creation of immersive experiences that allow learners to encounter perspectives and situations that are difficult to access during traditional training. For high-stress communication in acute care, this was achieved through a multiplayer, interactive, trainer-led virtual simulation. For therapeutic communication and team culture, this was achieved through patient-embodied and clinician-embodied VR experiences, enabling learners to experience healthcare from different perspectives.

Through user-centred design, mixed-methods research, and evaluation in clinical education settings, this thesis demonstrates that VR can transform implicit experiences into explicit learning opportunities. While VR cannot replace real clinical experience, it can provide powerful moments of perspective-taking and reflection that accelerate learning and support behavioural change.

This thesis contributes to healthcare education by showing how immersive, embodied technologies can complement traditional training and help develop the human skills that underpin patient-centred care and effective teamwork.