The students will be taken to an area prepared as a patient room in the simulation laboratory. They will be placed on a bed, playing the role of a patient. They will be shown a 360° pre-operative patient preparation video via VR glasses. The visual content used in the study was recorded with an Insta360 X4 brand 360° action camera.

The video includes processes such as identity verification, preoperative evaluation, anesthesia preparation, transfer to the operating room, time-out procedure, etc. The video is approximately 9.5 minutes long.

In addition to the VR experience, students in the intervention group will participate in theoretical lectures on the perioperative process, using lecture and question-and-answer methods as outlined in the surgical nursing course curriculum.

Students in the control group will not be included in the VR experience. They will attend only theoretical lectures using lecture and question-and-answer methods on the perioperative process, as outlined in the curriculum.

The nursing students in the experimental group 360° pre-operative patient preparation video via VR glasses. The visual content used in the study was recorded with an Insta360 X4 brand 360° action camera. The video includes processes such as identity verification, preoperative evaluation, anesthesia preparation, transfer to the operating room, time-out procedure, etc. The video is 9.5 minutes long.

Empathy scores will be measured by the Jefferson Empathy Scale - Health Professions Students Form (JSE-HPS): developed to assess the empathic tendencies of health professions students in a clinical context, and will be used as the primary empathy measurement tool in this study. The scale was developed by Hojat et al. to measure the empathic attitudes of health professionals towards patient care and was later adapted for health professions students. The JSE-HPS is a self-report scale consisting of 7-point Likert-type items that reflect both cognitive and affective components of empathy in a clinical relationship context.

20 items 7-point Likert score range: 20-140 higher score = higher empathy

Cognitive and Affective Empathy Scale (CAES): Developed by Reniers et al. in 2011, this scale assesses empathy under two main components: cognitive empathy and affective empathy. QCAE's robust psychometric structure provides a significant advantage for research seeking to examine empathy in detail across its sub-dimensions.

31 items subscales: cognitive & affective empathy higher score = higher empathy