Combatting Stress and Anxiety with Virtual Reality

Hey everyone! Now that the majority of my research project is over, I'm focused on working on my final presentation (May 6th) and deliverable: a research paper. I  have mixed feelings about saying goodbye to UAT. On one hand, I'm glad I was able to complete my internship and get everything I needed for my research study; On the other hand, I've become so accustomed to showing up weekly that everyone has just accepted me as a student there, and it feels weird to not go! I've had a really fun experience learning how to run a research study, and I'm glad I was able to meet so many cool people. Although my research isn't exactly groundbreaking or official, I am pretty excited that I got noticed for it! The marketing specialist at UAT, Lauren Fach, reached out to me to write a blogpost about my research. It was featured on the UAT VR twitter , as well as on the UAT Tech Blog . UAT Twitter Lauren's Twitter UAT Tech Blog (Click HERE to view

Hi everyone! I spent all of last week trying to figure out how to do my statistical analysis. (Image source) I walked into Mrs. Clark's (the AP Statistics teacher) room completely clueless. At first, she didn't realize I had no experience, and suggested I run several different fancy tests for significance and normality that I had never heard of. I must have had the most bizarre look on my face, because after 10 minutes of explanation, she finally asked, "Have you even taken stats before?" "Uhhhh nope." "OH...let's start over." Self-portrait  (Image source) RESULTS After three different sessions of learning statistics, I finally had a moderate understanding. I was able to run paired P tests and 2-sample tests to come to some conclusions: ✅ Based on the self-reported stress levels, VR (in both groups) was significant in reducing stress/anxiety ❌ In Group 2 (with controllers), the BP on average increased! Participants threw ro

BREAKING NEWS I finished collecting data from 100 participants! Quick update this week: No one signed up for the last day of testing, but I went into super-researcher mode and gathered 17 new participants to meet my goal! Throughout the whole experience, I was able to meet many cool students and get to know the culture on campus. Here I am  (feeling like a real scientist) Here's a quick video compilation I made of participants experiencing VR technology, some for the first time: Now I will begin the statistical analysis of my data to see if any interesting trends pop up. We shall see whether or not VR with controllers made a difference in students' stress levels in a few weeks!