The Effectiveness of Augmented and Virtual Reality in Anatomical Education

Recently the advancement of technology provides new ways to learn anatomy. There are a variety of ways to aid anatomical learning but this study will focus on augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR). In this study, a systematic review was conducted to present a critical analysis of AR and VR in anatomical education to conclude which is better. The first keywords inserted into PubMed were “augmented reality and teaching anatomy” which provided 44 articles. This review assessed and included literature on AR and VR used to teach anatomy for undergraduates and postgraduates (residents). The articles that were excluded were systematic reviews, literature reviews, review articles, news articles, articles German and Hungarian and any literature that presents how a virtual model was created without the evidence of students testing it. The second keywords inserted into PubMed were “virtual reality and teaching anatomy” which provided 299 articles (54 articles were used). The inclusion and exclusion criteria for VR were same as AR however duplicates were excluded. This resulted in 17 AR articles remaining and were categorised into one quantitative, eight qualitative and nine for both quantitative and qualitative. The 17 VR articles were categorised into nine quantitative, four qualitative and four for both quantitative and qualitative. There are more quantitative studies for VR than AR and there are more qualitative studies for AR than VR. These results are provisional and full results will be revealed at the conference. Overall, this systemic review highlights the recent advances of both AR and VR