Conference Agenda

Theoretical background

360° immersive videos (360°VR) offer a powerful means of situating learners within instructional scenarios, enhancing presence, attitudes, and socio-emotional learning. This potential is particularly relevant in vocational and professional education and training (VPET), where authentic learning opportunities are essential (Nachtigall et., 2024). When 360°VR resources are developed for educational purposes, essential media expertise must be complemented by instructional design competences (Reigeluth, 1999). This requires a co-design approach involving multiple professionals.

Models such as ADDIE framework (Richey et al., 2011) provide structured guidance from the definition of learning goals to the evaluation of instructional effectiveness and it is known that co-design is central to immersive technology development and relies on media, instructional, and domain competences (Mulders, 2022). Yet empirical evidence on how educational 360° videos are conceived and produced remains limited (Evens et al., 2023): little is known about the expertise involved, the phases, and the ways in which design decisions are negotiated.

Research question

To address these gaps, this study aims to identify:

a) the main phases involved in the development of 360°VR educational resources, and the roles and responsibilities of different professionals;

b) the phases in which teachers, instructional designers, and media designers collaborate, which instructional design decisions they take, and how they are negotiated;

c) the challenges and strategies during the co-design process.

Research design and methodology

The study examined four cases of 360°VR co-design. Cases and participants were selected through purposive sampling. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with five VPET teachers (N=5), instructional designers (N=5), and media designers (N=2). Data were analysed qualitatively, combining deductive with inductive categories. Specifically, deductive categories were defined based on the ADDIE model. Content analysis was applied using NVivo software, enabling the identification of the most frequent categories and the intercoder agreement.

Results and their significance

The analysis identified eleven empirical phases, distributed across the ADDIE model. The study shows that the processes did not follow a linear sequence but were characterised by an iterative and recursive logic. Although all phases involved collaboration, only some required the full convergence of all professionals (i.e., Analysis, Design, and Development), during which key co-design decisions were jointly negotiated.

Each role contributed a specific function aligned with principles of authentic learning. VPET teachers ensured physical and cognitive realism by selecting relevant situations and, e.g., aligning actions with professional standards or reviewing footage. Media designers shaped the perceived physical realism through technical choices, e.g. camera placement and angle testing. Instructional designers mediated between environmental complexity and cognitive demands by structuring guidance and calibrating realism, e.g., by drawing on multimedia learning principles, to keep the environment pedagogically meaningful rather than overwhelming. The study identified several challenges encountered by professionals during the co-design process, along with the strategies adopted to address them e.g. the alignment of the pedagogical objectives with technical constraints; findings revealed that this challenge could be addressed through continuous dialogue among team members, the use of dual storyboards and short workshops to clarify expectations and feasibility.

This work helps clarify what occurs within each phase of the co-design process for educational 360°VR development, complementing existing literature that has addressed these processes largely at a prescriptive level. It enriches the body of research on the co-design of immersive technologies by showing that 360°VR development is characterised by specific phases in which technical, pedagogical, and disciplinary competences actively intersect, highlighting emerging challenges and related strategies. From a practical perspective these findings offer valuable guidance to support coordinators and institutions in the sustainable adoption of 360°VR, clarifying workflows, competences, key decisions, and possible obstacle.

Background and methodological approach

This extended abstract explores how co-design approaches enhance the didactic quality and practical feasibility of immersive learning technologies in vocational education and training (VET). Building on user-centered and participatory design principles, we report insights from the project which developed and evaluated a virtual learning location in close collaboration with teachers, in-company trainers, apprentices, and an implementation partner.

The project addresses a persistent challenge in VET: the gap between school-based theory and workplace practice. Immersive technologies such as virtual and mixed reality promise authentic, situated learning, yet many solutions fail because they are not sufficiently aligned with curricular goals, workplace procedures, or the needs and constraints of VET stakeholders. To respond to this, the project adopted a co-design methodology grounded in the TPACK framework (Koehler & Mishra, 2009) and in design-based research (Brown, 1992; Collins, 1992; Euler, 2014; Euler & Wilbers, 2020), systematically involved end-users across all phases of the development cycle, from initial needs analysis to iterative prototyping and formative evaluation.

Co-design process and implementation

In the first phase, workshops and contextual inquiries with teachers, trainers, and learners were used to elicit concrete educational needs (such as typical work tasks and safety-critical situations that are difficult to practise in real settings) and to explore technological possibilities (such as interaction modalities in virtual environments). Together, these activities helped identify the “sweet spot” between pedagogy and technology and informed the specification of virtual learning locations and scenarios that closely mirror authentic work processes while remaining compatible with existing curricula and assessment practices. In the second phase, low- and high-fidelity prototypes of immersive scenarios were co-created and iteratively refined. Feedback sessions focused on usability, workload, motion comfort, and perceived relevance to everyday training. Finally, pilot implementations in VET classes and training centers examined acceptance, learning processes, and organizational conditions for sustainable integration. In total, 78 apprentices from two electrical occupations participated in the evaluation.

Findings, challenges, and implications

Findings indicate that co-design substantially increased the perceived relevance and appropriateness of the immersive solutions. Stakeholders emphasized that the virtual activities reflected realistic tasks and constraints, thereby supporting a more robust transfer between simulated and real work environments. The joint definition of learning objectives and performance criteria ensured that virtual scenarios were not “technology-driven showcases” but were pedagogically grounded and aligned with competence-oriented VET frameworks.From a user-experience perspective, early and repeated involvement of apprentices and instructors led to more intuitive interaction concepts and a reduction of barriers such as complex interfaces or discomfort when using head-mounted displays. Participants reported higher motivation and engagement, partly because they recognized their own ideas and work routines in the virtual environments, which fostered a sense of ownership. At the same time, the co-design process surfaced important technical and organizational constraints, such as limited space, setup time, and support resources, which fed back into pragmatic design decisions.

However, the project also highlights difficulties in commercializing co-designed prototypes within the timeframe and logic of research funding. Although the prototype reached a level of maturity suitable for pilot use in partner institutions, it was not ready for large-scale deployment. Moving from research prototype to market-ready product requires substantial additional investment in robustness, cross-platform compatibility and infrastructure, documentation, and long-term technical support. Further, questions of intellectual property, licensing, and data protection emerges once potential commercialization is discussed. Clarifying ownership between academic institutions, technology providers, and practice partners are preceding concrete exploitation steps. Finally, the economic value proposition for VET providers remains challenging: hardware costs, maintenance, and training for staff must be balanced against often intangible benefits such as improved motivation or safety.

Not all Emergency Care nurse students work in an emergency room that treats patients with multiple injuries (this applies to 73% of the students involved in this study). The chances of experiencing this situation, even during training, are therefore very limited. Uneven clinical contexts and varying levels of competence and practical preparation can lead to uncertainty and disparities in the training process.

Immersive technologies – and 360° video in particular – can play a role in this process, offering themselves as tools that support a vicarious experience of reality (Ranieri et al., 2022), especially when used in immersive mode through a headset.

360° videos offer the possibility to experience situations more realistically than traditional videos, allowing for accurate representation where spatial knowledge needs to be developed or the content requires it (Pirker and Dengel, 2021). 360° video therefore fits easily with approaches such as situated learning and cognitive apprenticeship (Jiang et al., 2024; Ranieri et al., 2022).

With the instructional goal of allowing students to experience caring for a polytrauma patient and consolidate their approach to it, we conducted an experiment with 360° video in a class of 11 nurses (7 males, Mage=31.9, SDage=5.19), implementing a monitoring system that allowed us to answer questions about the effectiveness of 360° video for student learning and motivation.

Adopting a pre-post design and an approach based on learning from errors (Wuttke & Seifried, 2012), the activity began with individual viewing of a 360° video showing the correct procedure, using MetaQuest2 headsets. After viewing, a plenary discussion allowed participants to share the salient elements of the procedure. Afterwards, the students watched a second video (same procedure but containing errors) in pairs, again in immersive mode. The viewing took place in succession, with the first student analysing the technical elements and the second analysing the non-technical elements. The student wearing the headset mentioned the errors identified aloud so that their partner could note them down on a virtual whiteboard. The video was then viewed a second time, with the roles reversed.

To assess learning, an ad hoc test was created with 11 questions, six of which were closed-ended (13 points in total), administered pre- and post-exposure to the stimuli. For affective-motivational aspects, a questionnaire was used to assess satisfaction (4 items, e.g., “I really enjoyed doing this activity”), ease of use (3 items, e.g., “I find the 360° video easy to use”) and perceived usefulness (3 items, e.g., “I believe this activity can be useful for me”) of the 360° video, inspired by validated tools (e.g., Venkatesh et al., 2003) and administered after the experience with the headset. All items use a 7-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree, 7 = strongly agree).

Although the characteristics of the test and the size of the sample do not allow for inferential analysis, the results of the ex-post learning test show an average increase of 21.77% compared to the pre-intervention test (Mpre=8.36, SDpre=2.34; Mpost=10.18, SDpost=2.27).

100% of students considered the activity useful for their training path (M=6.61, SD=0.71) and expressed a high degree of satisfaction (M=6.75, SD=0.46). Similarly, they find the 360° video easy to use (M=6.67, SD=0.42). The open-ended questions included in the questionnaire suggest that students identified the activity as an added value, as it allowed them to experience reality in a protected environment and carry out a critical analysis, consolidate their theoretical knowledge and see its application.

The activity also provided an opportunity for the teacher to integrate innovative technology into her teaching practice and to test its feasibility in a real-world context.