focusing on using data of human-human interaction to build and evaluate computational models that support social interactions between people and machines. Martin Dobricki is a senior scientist in the learning technologies research group at the Swiss Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (SFIVET) focusing on vocational learning and teaching through immersive virtual reality technology. Jennifer K. Olsen is a postdoctoral researcher at EPFL in the CHILI lab researching educational technologies and learning analytics. Alessia E. Coppi is a Ph.D. student at SFIVET interested in vocational education, new technologies and games, usability and cognitive enhancement. Alberto Cattaneo is a professor at SFIVET focusing on learning technologies, instructional design and teacher education. PierreDillenbourg is a professor in the School of Computer and Communication Sciences at EPFL and the head of the CHILI lab where he researches learning technologies and educational robotics.

Virtual reality (VR) may be useful for situating school-based vocational education in work-life by simulating a work situation such that learners viewing this VR work situation are located inside it. The reason for this assumption is that VR can fully spatially include its viewer. Research on the utility of viewer-including VR work situations for learners has, therefore, already started. However, no study has yet investigated their utility for teachers. This is particularly relevant for work situations involving environmental planning, as VR is expected to facilitate such a task. We, therefore, asked horticultural teachers to assess the educational usefulness of a VR work situation when they were located outside and inside it. For this purpose, we enabled them to plan a basic garden in the VR work situation when its environment was spatially excluding them and when it was including them. We found the teachers to perceive the viewer-including VR work situation as more useful for their teaching than its viewer-excluding version. This suggests that the perceived educational usefulness of a VR work situation depends on the spatial relation of its viewer and environment, that is, the spatial human-environment relation it involves.

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Context: Discovering visual languages across professions is a complex task since it entails discovering a communication system composed of information in image or textual form called representations and also including various kinds of annotations such as notes. Such a task has been previously scarcely considered within research, and basically only investigating in white collar professions (e.g., doctors). This leaves us wondering about all the possible shapes of these vocational visual languages and the potential of using these images to foster learning. For this reason, the current research aims to investigate commonalities and differences of visual languages across vocational professions with the goal of using the outcomes to design educational activities for vocational education and training (VET).Approach: 55 semi-structured interviews have been conducted within eleven professions from the areas of Craftsmanship, Industry, Health and Services such a plumber and fashion designers. The interviews were audio-recorded and analyzed with NVivo through a coding scheme which served as the main reference for the analysis.Findings Results showed that, in terms of visual representations, professionals use different types of drawings such as technical drawings (e.g., woodworkers), evaluation forms (e.g., dental assistants) and illustrations (e.g., gardeners). For sketches, participants indicate the practice of creating sketches depicting objects to produce (e.g. goldsmiths). For photos, they portrayed things to remember or pay attention to (e.g., chemical technologists). Participants across professions use annotations such as notes to specify details of their job. On the other side, they also report profession-specific annotations such as mathematical symbols like the surface roughness (e.g., polymechanics) and diagrammatic elements like different type of lines to indicate the status of the bones and muscles (e.g., massage therapists) or where to cut textiles (e.g., fashion designers). In terms of communalities, participants within technical professions indicated a shared use of both representations and annotations. Conversely, other professions had very specific visual languages hardly shareable across professions. Conclusion:These results helped in discovering the visual languages of different professions and this knowledge will be used to implement educational activities based on specific skills needed in different professions such as observation skills with the use of VET-specific educational technologies.

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Visual expertise is a fundamental proficiency in many vocations and many questions have risen on the topic, with studies looking at experts and novices differences’ in observation (e.g., radiologists) or at ways to help novices achieve visual expertise (e.g., through annotations). However, most of these studies focus on white-collar professions and overlook vocational ones. For example, observing is uttermost important for fashion designers who spend most of their professional time on visual tasks related to creating patterns and garments or performing alterations. Therefore, this study focuses on trying to convey a professional way to look at images by exposing apprentices to images annotated (e.g., circles) by experts and identifying if their gaze (e.g., fixation durations and gaze coverage) and verbalisations (i.e., images descriptions) are affected. The study was conducted with 38 apprentices that were exposed to sequential sets of images depicting shirts, first non-annotated (pre-test), then annotated for the experimental group and non-annotated for the control group (training 1 and training 2), and finally non-annotated (post-test). Also, in the pre and post-test and in training 2 apprentices had to verbally describe each image. Gaze was recorded with the Tobii X2–60 tracker. Results for fixation durations showed that the experimental group looked longer in the annotated part of the shirt in training 1 and in the shirt’s central part at post-test. However, the experimental group did not cover a significantly larger area of the shirt compared to control and verbalisations show no difference between the groups at post-test.

Visual exploration skill acquisition is important for many vocational professions, yet many apprentices struggle to acquire these skills, impacting both their grades and practical work. Traditionally, the learning of visual skills is facilitated through exercises where it can be difficult to identify struggling apprentices early. We propose the use of gaze patterns to identify apprentices who may need additional support. In this paper, we investigated differences in gaze patterns between teachers and apprentices and the relationship between gaze patterns and student performance. In a study with 18 fashion design apprentices and 16 fashion design teacher, we found teachers have a higher gaze coverage of an image than apprentices and there is a correlation between the verbalisation score of apprentices and their similarity of gaze patterns to the teacher average. Using these results, we may be able to adapt exercises to apprentices' particular needs early in the learning process.