DigiLernSicher: Digital learning of safety-related knowledge and associated behaviours

• July 27, 2023
• Andrew

DigiLernsicher is a nationally funded project in Austria, led by 

In this nationally funded project, VR learning scenarios were identified in design fiction workshops with trainers and trainees, a VR app was developed and the user experience was tested. The result is a VR simulation and a compendium describing how to successfully implement VR as a training tool.
– to develop basic digital skills
– Austria
– Wirtschaftskammer Steiermark – leading organsiation in collaboration with Wirtschaftskammer Steiermark (Room466 by WKO Steiermark) Mindconsole GmbH AIT Austrian Institute of Technology AVL List GmbH 
– regional initiative
– initiative is free of charge for participants
– beneficiaries It aims to introduce extended reality technologies such as virtual reality (VR) into the field of vocational education and training. The focus was placed on the profession of electrician, as the benefits of safe training in VR are easily explainable. Beneficiaries of the developed VR app are trainers and teachers at vocational institutes and schools to gain experience with VR as a training tool, as well as trainees and students to familiarise themselves with VR technology as
learning tool.
DigiLernsicher aims to identify the potential of new digital technologies such as virtual and augmented reality, simulation from the first-person perspective, but also game-based learning approaches from the field of human-computer interaction for the training of safety-relevant aspects for apprentices and workers.
Experiencing danger safely is a high demand, especially in the training of electrical engineering apprentices. VR is a proposed solution here, also to make learning and training more immersive and phenomenological. Another aspect of the digital teaching methods considered in the project is the possibility to present the learning content to each participant in an equally controllable and repeatable way, or to train dangerous moments in a repeatable way. But what requirements do apprentices have towards a VR app and how does a sustainable implementation of VR in an educational institution work? Our research project with a specially developed VR app and field study provides the answers.
DigiLernSicher is a VR research project and investigates how VR can be used to effectively and efficiently teach safety-relevant and complex content in apprenticeship training and how these technologies can be integrated into teaching practice. The VR scenario developed for this purpose in collaboration with the various stakeholders includes a domestic environment with possibly damaged electrical installations. In order to investigate the acceptance, usability and presence of the developed VR-based training and to derive guidelines for the integration of VR training into VET curricula, a field study was conducted together with partners from industry and the VET sector.
The following approaches were implemented in the project in apprenticeship training:
– Analysis of safety-relevant problems in Styrian companies
– Analysis of existing curricula regarding the teaching of safety-relevant knowledge with digital technologies
– Conceptual description of scenarios for learning safety-related actions with digital technologies
– Prototypical implementation of a VR environment as a learning scenario for electrical engineers
– Scientific evaluation
– Survey of acceptance and evaluation of the socio-economic feasibility of VR apps in vocational education and training