Changing perspectives: enhancing learning efficacy with the after-action review in virtual reality training for police

Abstract

The After-Action Review (AAR) in Virtual Reality (VR) training for police provides new opportunities to enhance learning. We investigated whether perspectives (bird’s eye & police officer, bird’s eye & suspect, bird’s eye) and line of fire displayed in the AAR impacted the officers’ learning efficacy. A 3 x 2 ANOVA revealed a significant main effect of AAR perspectives. Post hoc pairwise comparisons showed that using a bird’s eye view in combination with the suspect perspective elicits significantly greater learning efficacy compared to using a bird’s eye view alone. Using the line of fire feature did not influence learning efficacy. Our findings show that the use of the suspect perspective during the AAR in VR training can support the learning efficacy of police officers.

Practitioner summary: VR systems possess After-Action Review tools that provide objective performance feedback. This study found that reviewing a VR police training scenario from the bird’s eye view in combination with the suspect perspective enhanced police officers’ learning efficacy. Designing and applying the After-Action Review effectively can improve learning efficacy in VR.

Keywords:

• Police training
• virtual reality
• after-action review
• learning efficacy

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the Stadtpolizei Zürich for their collaboration in this study. In particular, we would like to thank Christoph Altmann for the organization and the police officers and instructors for participating in this study. We would also like to thank Refense; particularly, Ronny Tobler for taking part in this project.

Disclosure statement

The authors report there are no competing interests to declare.

Additional information

Funding

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under grant agreement No 833672. The content reflects only authors’ view. Research Executive Agency and European Commission are not liable for any use that may be made of the information contained herein.