Can a virtual reality game accurately measure golfing ability? New research from Dr Luke Wilkins and Dr Kane Middleton suggests it can, but only to a point.
“Virtual reality (VR) technologies are being adopted across sport for training, testing and performance enhancement. However, up until now, there has been little evidence to suggest that VR meaningfully reflects sporting ability,” Dr Wilkins says.
Using a popular, commercially available VR golf game, the researchers found that golfers significantly outperformed non-golfers, showing the VR game captured broad elements of golf skill. However, VR couldn’t differentiate between different skill levels of golfers.
“We also found that video game experience predicted VR performance, but only among non-golfers. This suggests that general gaming skills may give people an early advantage in VR when they don’t yet have sport-specific expertise,” according to Dr Wilkins.
Together, the findings challenge the assumption that VR performance simply mirrors real-world ability. Instead, it reflects a mix of sporting skill, game design and prior gaming experience.
Future research will examine when VR sport can better distinguish between different skill levels.
“More broadly, this work aims to help practitioners determine when a VR platform is suitable for training, testing or research.”
