Publication of the results of the UngSpotlight study
Postdoc Smiti Kahlon has been working on her doctorate in recent years, entitled the UngSpotlight Project, a VR programme for young people with performance anxiety (public speaking anxiety). The results of the study have now been published in Frontiers in Virtual Reality.
Presentation anxiety is one of the most common fears among adolescents. It is assumed that around 30 % experience presentation anxiety to such an extent that it affects their school life, and even more adolescents avoid situations in which they are asked to present themselves in public. This way, they do not get the opportunity to show their full potential at school. The aim of the study is to investigate whether VR therapy (gamified virtual realityexposure) can help adolescents manage presentation anxiety so that they have an easier school day.
The study is a randomised controlled trial in 100 adolescents. The adolescents were either assigned VR therapy, an online training programme or a combination of these. Both interventions were purely self-help and were carried out at home after school. The main findings from the study show that VR therapy has an effect compared to the group that did not receive the therapy. No group differences were shown between VR therapy and the online training programme.
Both training programmes are freely available for use. The VR application can be downloaded from the Oculus Quest Store and is called UngSpotlight VR. The web-based training programme UngSpotlight will be launched via the Directorate for Health and Social Affairs this autumn.