The Effect of Practice Distribution on Skill Retention in Virtual Reality Temporal Bone Surgery Training

Virtual reality (VR) simulation has had various applications since its establishment as a means of replicating real-life scenarios. Surgical training is a rapidly growing area for the application of VR, and there is evidence to suggest that skills learned during VR training are transferable to the operating theatre. When developing an effective VR surgical training curriculum, practice distribution is a major factor. Research has found that distributed practice (sessions spread over time) is superior to massed practice (in one session). In this paper, we explore the effect of three forms of distributed practice (daily, weekly, and monthly) on skill retention in VR temporal bone surgery training. We show through a randomised trial that significant skill retention may be achieved irrespective of practice spacing for these three types of distributed practice if other factors of surgical education, such as task demonstration, performance feedback, and task repetition are properly incorporated into the program.