2025-07-02 –, Theil C1-3 (60p)
This session presents a VR-based experiential learning workshop designed to teach psychology students about systemic and community-level barriers to mental health. Evaluation and exam results suggest that immersive learning enhances understanding and retention of health inequalities and may reduce disparities in student performance.
Can VR-based experiential learning foster empathy and perspective-taking to improve students' understanding of complex social issues?
We present a VR-based workshop concept designed to help bachelor's and master's psychology students understand how systemic and community-level barriers contribute to socio-economic mental health disparities. In five workshops, students were briefly immersed in contrasting VR neighbourhoods—half experienced a deprived, the other half a middle-class setting—and asked to imagine living in the community while being the target of a mental health intervention (e.g. an online mindfulness programme). They reflected on how neighbourhood conditions might support or hinder their ability to benefit from the intervention and influence required behaviour change.
Afterwards, students participated in guided group reflection, using their VR experiences to explore how community-level factors (e.g. crime, safety, social cohesion, access to green space) affect the success of interventions—and how these may unintentionally reinforce inequalities by favouring those in middle-class environments.
Evaluation data from 24 bachelor’s and 15 master’s students showed high scores in empathy, systemic understanding, and the perceived value of VR for learning about health inequalities. Notably, there were no differences between students who experienced the deprived versus the middle-class VR neighbourhood.
We also analysed exam performance from two sessions of third-year bachelor students (n=15 and n=16) in the Public Mental Health module. The question directly related to the VR workshop had the highest average score (93.75%) and a low standard deviation (0.34), indicating strong retention and reduced variability in student performance compared to questions based on traditional teaching methods.
These findings suggest that immersive VR learning not only deepens understanding of complex social issues, but may also promote more equitable learning outcomes.
Jeanette Hadaschik (MSc) is a behavioural scientist and external PhD candidate in psychology at Maastricht University, where her research focuses on socio-economic health disparities and the role of Early Life Stress and socio-environmental factors in decision-making, risk-taking, and health behaviour. She uses VR to investigate the impact of threatening and dangerous environments on behaviour, exploring dynamics that contribute to health inequalities. Jeanette also runs her own behavioural science consultancy, Evidentia Behavioral Insights, advising organisations on evidence-based approaches to real-life problems, such as XR-based training and learning.
Dr. Nina Krohne is a research psychologist at the University of Primorska, Slovenia. Her work focuses on public mental health, with research interests spanning mental health literacy, trauma, suicidality, intimate partner violence, attitudes toward mental health, e-health, intervention implementation, and the impact of crises such as COVID-19. She teaches courses in public mental health and public health interventions, and also works as a cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) counselor and mindfulness teacher. Her approach combines research, teaching, and practice to promote evidence-based support for individual and community mental wellbeing.