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With organizations starting to adopt VR and using it for various online training programs, including onboarding, it’s becoming the way. virtual reality training has the potential of taking learning beyond the normal online training experience.
It has many benefits, including boosting employee retention ability, immersive learning experience, and enhancing engagement, which contribute to its potential to achieve the best results.
Although VR has a higher potential for delivering effective training, it may not be the best choice for every performance problem.
So, to ensure you are on the right path, there’s a need to put some things into consideration before implementing virtual reality training. In this article, we’ll be exploring the different things to consider before you implement the VR training program.
4 things to consider before implementing virtual reality
Ignore novelty and start with the pedagogy
Taking a step back is an essential first thing to consider before implementing virtual reality training for your organization. Firstly, you need to check if VR is best for you to achieve your desired results.
Of course, VR is not right for every situation or performance problem. So, ensure that you start with the pedagogy and define your challenges and learning goals.
Defining your learning challenges
Every organization has learning challenges that they are facing and trying to provide solutions. Why not start by defining them, so you can find an effective way to solve them?
While in some organizations, meeting up with a particular target is their learning challenges, some lack strong teamwork to foster communication. So, before implementing virtual reality training, ensure you start by defining your learning challenges.
Defining your learning goals
Learning goals are the most essential for every online training, and clearly defining them will help you achieve the best results. To define your learning goal, you can start by asking yourself questions like; what did I want to achieve with the e-learning course?
You can also list out what you want your employees to achieve after completing your e-learning course. By so doing, you can be sure whether VR is the right learning tool for the business results you’re aspiring to achieve or not.
Consider your desired performance goals
To use virtual reality training for your e-learning program, you must be sure that it can help to deliver a better improvement in performance compared to other training methods.
While lesser high-tech training approaches like e-Learning and Instructor-led training can help to improve your performance, ensure that VR training can provide a better outcome.
That’s essential to ensure that you’re not spending much money on high-tech training when you can easily opt for less expensive tech training for the same outcomes.
Some used cases where virtual reality training is essential is in the training of military men. Since it’s almost impossible to take them to the battlefield to train them, you can simulate a battlefield environment and immerse them in it.
You can also use it in the chemical industry to train employees on the usage of harmful chemicals. By so doing, they can acquire the necessary knowledge/training without having to face any risk and injury.
Consider your organization’s learning culture
For a successful training initiative, defining your organizational culture is essential. According to the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), everyone’s intention to use VR training relies on several factors.
These factors include output quality of learning, individual perception of VR ease of use, and many more. So, before implementing a VR training for your online training program, ensure you consider your organizational culture.
Be sure that your proposed virtual reality training will directly affect employees’ roles and improve their performances. Although virtual reality training has several benefits to contribute to the success of your online training, it’s not right for all situations.
Take time to consider your organizational culture, desired performance goal, and the settings with which you’ll be implementing your VR training.
With the above three considerations and many more, you can be sure whether VR is right for your organization’s training program or not.