Relationship Between Virtual Reality Acceptance, Nursing Students' Self-Efficacy and Attitudes: Cross-Sectional and Correlational Study

Objective: Nursing education must evolve with advancing information technology to prepare students for the healthcare sector. Clinical competencies, key indicators of self-efficacy, are closely tied to the acceptance and attitude toward virtual reality technologies. However, few studies have explored how virtual reality impacts academic self-efficacy and students' perceptions of their achievement potential in nursing education. Thus, the study aimed to investigate the nursing students' acceptance of virtual reality technologies and its association with their academic self-efficacy and attitudes toward virtual reality. Material and Methods: This cross-sectional study included 200 nursing students as participants. The Virtual Reality Acceptance Scale, Academic Self-Efficacy Scale, and Educational Virtual Reality Attitude Scale were used for data collection. Path analysis was conducted to explore the relationships between the variables examined. Results: Rates of correlation among virtual reality acceptance -educational virtual reality attitude (r=0.638; p<0.01) is strong and virtual reality acceptance- academic self-efficacy (r=0.279; p<0.01) is small. Behind this, there is no relationships among educational virtual reality attitude-academic self-efficacy (r=0.123; p>0.05). Virtual reality acceptance has a significant direct effect on educational virtual reality attitude (β=0.64) and academic selfefficacy (β=0.28). Conclusion: Virtual Reality acceptance is a significant predictor of both educational virtual reality attitude and academic self-efficacy, with important implications for the implementation and research in nursing education.