Virtual earthquake escape: the predictive role of IVR self-efficacy in anxiety, frustration and performance

Abstract The occurrence of earthquakes is not easy to predict, so it is necessary to pre-train people to react quickly when an earthquake actually happens. Most often such pre-training programs take place in unrealistic situations that are unable to provide learners with a sense of presence. This study implemented an immersive virtual reality earthquake escape system called IVR Earthquake Escape in a telecommunication company context, where the time taken to complete the escape task within the VR system served as a measure of learning performance. The study explored the correlates between IVR self-efficacy, anxiety in earthquake situations (hereafter, anxiety), frustration in operating VR equipment (hereafter frustration), and learning performance. A total of 218 useful data were collected and were subjected to structural equation modeling. Results revealed that IVR self-efficacy was negatively related to anxiety and frustration; anxiety was not significantly related to learning performance, but frustration was negatively related to learning performance. Moreover, by comparing the predictive power of anxiety on learning performance to frustration on learning performance, this study found that the predictive power of functional frustration was higher than that of situational anxiety. The results imply that IVR Earthquake Escape can be used to train people who live in the so-called “earthquake belt” to save lives during earthquakes.