A Scoping Review on Certified Immersive Virtual Training Applications

Abstract

The fourth industrial revolution has given rise to virtual applications for training to meet the rapidly changing work environment. However, there are scanty reviews on the subject in the context of virtual training and certification. The current paper thus presents a scoping review of the literature regarding virtual applications for certification in training for specific competence building. The review essentially focuses on the required processes and outcomes of previous immersive virtual environments for certifications, and the effects of the training on competence measurement reliability. Additionally, the study investigates from the selected publications the learning outcome, competencies gained and the related training acquired. Besides, current weaknesses and strengths of VR applications are presented with suggestions for further improvements. Reviewed articles were obtained by extracting the salient information from publications indexed in four scientific digital libraries utilizing exclusion and inclusion methods. Our research design constituted five steps beginning with the research questions, literature extraction, relevant publication section, data extraction, evaluation and future research agenda. Selected publications also focused on fully immersive virtual reality utilizing HTC VIVE and Oculus Rift. Several advantages of the virtual certification training were discovered including enthusiasm, learning outcome, cost reduction, measurability and effects of the certifications. The majority of the publications focused extensively on the healthcare industry, especially medical/surgical. However, industrial virtual certifications such as hot work safety training, forklift safety operation, crane safety operation, and general work safety were discovered to be lacking. Despite these gaps, current interest and commitments are driving future alternatives for virtual training and certification for improving industrial training and competencies in other areas where utilization is conspicuously limited.