At City St George’s, we’re always looking for new ways to enhance the student experience. And in the age of technological advancements, what better way to do so than to leverage new technologies to support student learning.
Enhancing hands-on learning with OSTE
As the University of business, practice and the professions, hands-on learning is almost second nature. At the School of Science & Technology we wanted to take this a step further and employed Objective Structured Teaching Exercise (OSTE), an innovative approach adapted from medical teaching methodologies, which allows students to learn in a simulated scenario where they receive immediate feedback on their performance. This constructive method of teaching gives students the opportunity to develop their skills in a controlled environment that offers them consistent and valuable evaluation.
Led by Professor Christoph Bruecker and Senior Technician Keith Pamment, OSTE was piloted on second-year engineering students. Unlike traditional coursework, where students passively observe demonstrations, OSTE demanded that students directly engage with laboratory experiments and equipment.
By assembling an airflow rig and measuring airflow and pressure loss, students gained a deeper, more hands-on understanding of fluid mechanics. This approach proved highly effective, with an average student score of 80 per cent and overwhelmingly positive feedback. The immediate and interactive structure of the assessment ensured that students could identify areas for improvement in real time, making their learning more impactful.
Building on this success, the School started to incorporate Virtual Reality (VR) into laboratory work, allowing students to rehearse assessments in a 3D environment. This integration of VR made the learning process more engaging and memorable, allowing students to perform better.
Using virtual reality to improve mental health
Continuing on the theme of VR, colleagues at the Tooting campus embarked on revolutionary work to improve the mental wellbeing of students at City St George’s. In recent years, and amid challenges from the pandemic and the rise of the cost-of-living, student mental wellbeing has been on the decline with over 50 per cent of respondents to the Student Minds survey 2022 reporting a mental health problem during their time at university. In fact, a five-fold increase has been observed between 2010/11 and 2020/2 of students reporting a mental health problem.
For the student, this means poorer academic performance, dropping out of university, and in some cases self-harm.
The situation is sensitive and poses a unique challenge for universities with institutes across the sector searching for answers to help alleviate some these concerns around student mental health.
Who knew virtual reality could be one of those answers?
Colleagues at City St George’s in collaboration with Phase Space Ltd developed hypnosis-based stress management techniques, including breathing and visualisation exercises. The plan was for these techniques to harness the power of VR and supercharge the process of relaxation using headset visuals to focus attention and achieve a deep state of calm within minutes. Something that would take longer without the aid of VR.
One hundred healthcare students were recruited on a trial between October and November 2023. They were randomly assigned to view the VR content – focused on dealing with exam stress – either using a Phase Space headset or as a 2D video on their smartphone. Both groups completed a seven-minute VR session every day for five days.
Before and after each session, participants were asked to report how calm, stressed, and anxious they felt on a scale of 0 to 10.
The result? Students in the VR headset group showed greater improvements in all measures immediately after the sessions compared to the control (smartphone) group. In the headset group, their feeling of calm increased with a score of 5.6 before the trial to 7.5 after the sessions, stress decreased from a score of 5.0 to 3.2 and anxiety decreased from 4.4 to 3.0.
Using standardised scales typically used in psychiatry, the students also reported their levels of happiness, calmness, stress, sadness, anxiety, wellbeing and depression at the start of the trial and at a follow-up session two weeks later.
After two weeks, levels of student wellbeing increased, and levels of perceived stress decreased in the VR headset group. There were no changes between the pre-intervention and follow-up period in the control group.
Working smarter, not harder
If there’s one thing technology has shown us, it’s that processes can be both simplified and improved. This is especially true for universities. As technological developments advance so will city St George’s offering to its students. Whether working with various departments across the University to incorporate the use of stress-reducing VR headsets into pre-exam preparation, or boosting learning with OSTE, our students can rely on us to leverage the latest advancements to better their learning and wellbeing.