This paper considers the challenges and opportunities facing the teaching of procedural skills in Virtual Reality (VR). A critical evaluation was performed on a virtual learning environment (VLE) for teaching procedural skills which was stipulated by our problem statement "Does hand-worn input controllers with a high level of execution and force feedback have an advantage over traditional handheld controllers with a lower level of execution and vibrotactile feedback for transfer of procedural skills to real life?". To answer the problem statement we evaluated the efficacy of learning transfer between two different treatment groups in the VLE where: (i) a Vive Controller or (ii) a SenseGlove DK1 was used. The goal was to teach forward-pipetting which is a technique that allows precise measurement of aqueous solutions such as buffers, and diluted salts. A between-subjects design was applied to prevent carryover effects from confounding the independent variable.

Participants in both groups were assessed for performance on a learning task (VP) and a transfer task (RP). In the VP participants were taught a sequence of actions in the VLE required to perform forward pipetting. In the RP, the same participants were then asked to replicate the training procedure. Performances were averaged for both tasks in each treatment group. The performances on the VP and RP were then compared amongst the two treatments. There were no significant differences of performances in the VP, however, a significant difference was found in the RP that was in favor of those who were trained with the SenseGlove DK1. The results thus indicate that hand-worn controllers with a high level of execution have an advantage over traditional handheld controllers with haptic feedback for teaching procedural skills in VR. A caveat of the present study was not all effects can be isolated and thus, it only on the compounded effect of the input system and interactions. In addition, the study used a small sample size N = 20 and, therefore, it may have overpredicted performances of the SenseGlove treatment. A larger sample size should be used to get more accurate estimates.