Immersive Learning Environments for Sustainable Competence Development

Organizations in the industrial sector are rapidly adopting IVR technology for modernizing their competence development initiatives, while more research is needed about how to design immersive learning environments, and what long term implications such work-integrated learning approach has for humans, workplaces, and organizations.

Without a joint collaboration between academia and industry, it is difficult to evaluate and know what implications IVR technology provides for developing learning environments that are immersive and useful for organizations’ competence development initiatives. The overall aim of this project is thus to explore and develop knowledge on how Immersive Learning Environments (ILEs) can be designed, developed, adapted, and used for sustainable competence development in industrial settings, and what the implications of ILEs are for an industrial work-integrated learning.

More specifically, the project collaborates with the industry partners SJ, Nolato, Hypr10, and Tenstar Simulations in two different cases: (a) the case of immersive safety training with ILEs, and (b) the case of work-integrated learning for human-machine interaction in manufacturing settings.

This includes developing knowledge about what role space, immersive technologies, embodiment, and virtual pedagogical avatars, play for simulating virtual training that prepares practitioners for sensitive, unstable, and stressful situations, as well as to develop a deeper understanding about what implications ILEs have for enabling a competence development strategy that is safe and sustainable over time.

Work-integrated fire safety training in virtual reality

In this study, the background was set against an empirical case of fire safety training with IVR technology together with Sweden’s largest train company SJ. Safety training is currently a growing application area of IVR where organizations adopt IVR technology to prepare their employees for complicated and sensitive situations that require focus, attention, and increased safety awareness for managing safety issues (e.g., evacuation, hazards, fire).

Safety awareness is an important part of the safety training in IVR because it has general implications for participants’ overall situation awareness, which is the perception of the elements in the environment within a volume of time and space, the comprehension of meaning, and the projection of their status in the near future. The purpose of exercising fire safety training in IVR was to equip employees with procedural skills (e.g., knowledge about how to accomplish something) that increase a work-integrated safety awareness and prepare them for extinguishing fire onboard real trains.

Work-integrated safety training in virtual reality for conflict management onboard trains

In this study, we explore and develop knowledge about how to design and develop ILEs for work-integrated safety training that prepares train personnel for conflict management onboard trains. This includes identifying and developing competence development goals for learning objectives (“know what’s”), methods of conflict management (“know how’s), and safe spaces that enable both an explorative learning approach, as well as a learning by doing process through procedural training of safety awareness and soft conflict management skills. 

Work-integrated learning for human-machine interaction

In this study, we develop knowledge about how to develop methods and modules for a work-integrated learning that enhances skills for a meaningful human-machine interaction in manufacturing settings. A critical component of this study is to explore how virtual training in ILEs can create a safe space for conducting such kind of work-integrated learning.

PhD student project about immersive learning environments for Work-integrated safety training

Jesse Katende, PhD student in Work-integrated Learning, studies how ILEs can be designed for a work-integrated safety training in Virtual Reality. Jesse employs an Action Design Research (ADR) approach to balance the design of ILE prototypes with the production of scientific knowledge that addresses usability challenges, cultural diversity in training environments, and the need of incorporating established learning theories in virtual training environments that emphasize safety as a crucial factor for a meaningful learning experience. 

PhD student project about virtual avatars as pedagogical companions for a meaningful Work-integrated learning

Darmin Poturovic, PhD student in Work-integrated Learning, studies the role of virtual avatars as becoming pedagogical companions in ILEs. Darmin employs a mixed methods approach that is grounded in a phenomenological tradition of understanding learning through meaning and meaning creation, a learning by doing that is reflective, and how the embodiment of knowledge takes place between avatars and humans in ILEs.  

Co-production workshops with industry partners and open lab

Open Lab is a nexus at University West for exploring how researchers, students, teachers, and industry partners can engage with future streams of digital information and mixed-reality processes, and what implications immersive technologies have for learning and work (https://openlab.hv.se). In this project, we foster the work-integrated learning philosophy by using the Open Lab for co-producing knowledge together with industry partners, to demonstrate prototype use of ILEs, to enable a reflective practice with and through technology, and to enrich the exchange of knowledge between the project parties.

Students’ contributions

Throughout the course of this project, we foster a work-integrated learning approach by involving both bachelor and master students in the research project.

More information about the students’ work will be added shortly