Enhancing Healthcare Simulations and Beyond: Immersion Theory and Practice

Abstract

This paper synthesizes the different ways that players and theorists discuss immersion in role-playing games, establishing six major categories: immersion into activity, game, environment, narrative, character, and community. For the purposes of understanding typical modes of engagement, immersion concepts are considered alongside player motivation theories. Furthermore, this article applies these categories, which are drawn largely from game studies, to the field of health care simulation, categorizing specific practices within the simulation classroom according to types of immersion. The goal of this research is to enhance the understanding and design of simulation by appealing to multiple modes of immersion, which may assist in engaging a greater number of students. Diversifying the types of experiences within health care simulations in order to appeal to multiple modalities of immersion holds the potential to create more rich and layered experiential learning situations.