WYOMISSING, Pa. — The benefits of virtual reality (VR) appear to extend beyond video games, according to Penn State Berks senior kinesiology major Diana Stoltzfus and Associate Professor of Kinesiology Praveen Veerabhadrappa. They recently found that using emerging technology, such as VR, during exercise can improve the experience and reduce the perceived effort for college students.
Stoltzfus and Veerabhadrappa were recently awarded the Best Poster Presentation Award at the 30th Congress of The International Society of Hypertension Conference in Cartagena, Colombia, for this work, titled “Comparison of College Students’ Health Metrics During Traditional & Virtual Reality Based Cycling.”
According to the researchers, most college students do not meet national physical activity guidelines. Stoltzfus and Veerabhadrappa hypothesized that the popularity of new technology, such as VR, could help promote physical activity and exercise in sedentary college students. To test this, they examined how wearing a VR headset might impact college students’ heart rate, blood pressure and rate of perceived exertion (RPE) during stationary cycling.
The preliminary results suggest that using VR technology during exercise may be a viable tool to promote physical activity among otherwise sedentary populations, the researchers said.
For this study, Stoltzfus took baseline measurements from 22 student participants. The participants engaged in traditional exercise and exercise using a VR headset connected to a specially designed stationary bike in the lab.
Students would begin by cycling for 20 minutes without VR, take a 10-minute break and then return to cycling for another 20 minutes using the VZFit virtual reality program, which allows users to select a bike route from a wide variety of settings. Stoltzfus would take the participants’ heart rate, blood pressure and RPE every five minutes while they were cycling, with and without the VR headset. She then uploaded the results into a statistical program.
Stoltzfus said that one significant finding of the study is that participants perceived the activity as easier during the initial five minutes of cycling using the VR headset.
“There are hurdles to exercise: One of the hurdles is sense of effort,” Veerabhadrappa said. “The beauty of VR is that you can leverage technology to bring the sense of effort down. The effort that was perceived was much less than the effort that was actually expended.”
Stoltzfus explained that she wanted to study college students specifically because many students are busy with classes and other activities and find it difficult to find time to exercise.
Prior to receiving this award, Stoltzfus also presented her research this spring during the Higher Education Council of Berks County Undergraduate Research and Creativity Conference. The Higher Education Council of Berks County includes all five institutions of higher learning in Berks County: Albright College, Alvernia University, Kutztown University, Penn State Berks and Reading Area Community College.
The quality of research work that undergraduate students are conducting at Penn State Berks is comparable to graduate-level research, according to Veerabhadrappa. He added that these experiences open doors to a lot of opportunities for students to present their work and to travel.
Stoltzfus said she was surprised and thrilled to learn that Veerabhadrappa submitted the research to The International Society of Hypertension Conference. Soon, she was on a plane to Colombia to present her work.
Veerabhadrappa said enjoys working with students and plans to continue this research with students in the kinesiology degree program after Stoltzfus graduates this December.