Context: Exploring the design space is an important process in a design task. In this study, we considered design space exploration for the learners in vocational education and training (VET). The goal of the study was to investigate how they explore the design space while focusing on the effect of a graph-like interface on the learner's understanding of the design space. With florists as the target profession, we investigated how the apprentices explore design variations, what they would gain from such activity, and how we can support this process. Approach: We developed a web application called BloomGraph that allows learners to explore design variations. It provides a graph-based interface that enables the systematic variation of design. Using the BloomGraph application, we conducted an experimental study with 44 florist apprentices in Switzerland to investigate the effect of the graph-based interface which provides a structured way of exploring the design space. The experimental group was given the graph-based interface to explore design variations while the control group had a linear-based interface. We compared them in terms of the number of bouquets explored, time of exploration, diversity of bouquets explored, and the learning gain in terms of the understanding of the design space measured using pre and post-Tests. We also analyzed the strategies adopted by the participants for the graph navigation and the visual exploration behavior using the eye gaze data. Findings: Our analysis shows that the graph-based interface fosters a better understanding of the size of the design space and more efficient navigation towards a goal design in terms of the number of intermediate designs but with longer exploration of each intermediate design compared to the linear-based interface. Regarding the behavioral patterns in graph exploration, the participants who showed more strategic behavior in the design choices acquired a better understanding of the design space. Additionally, we trained a model that predicts the next choice of a learner using eye tracking data. It provides a reasonable accuracy that opens new possibilities for future studies. Conclusion: The findings of this study support the feasibility of design space exploration as a digital activity for VET learners and show how the learners can benefit from it. The contribution of the paper includes the validation of the idea with florist apprentices and the demonstration of how the process can be supported using a structured interface and the learner behavior analysis. This paper shows how a design exploration activity can provide an added value in the learning of an apprentice in a design-related VET system.

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Immersive virtual reality (IVR) offers possibilities of creating a learner-centric environment that can provide more presence and engagement for students leading to an enhanced learning experience compared to conventional classroom practices. However, the potential of IVR in vocational education and training (VET) has not yet been explored in-depth, and it is an open question of whether it can effectively support learner creation in a designing task. In this paper, we present an IVR application developed to support gardener apprentices in designing gardens. Using this application, we conducted an experimental study with gardener apprentices to investigate the effect of the IVR interface compared to paper sketching and learner behavior on the proportion, composition, and creativity of the design outcome. Additionally, we investigated how it can be combined with a paper sketching activity to improve its effectiveness. Our analysis shows that the IVR interface can be more effective for the proportion aspect, but this may be limited to students that are able to use it after working with paper. In terms of the combination order, the effectiveness of IVR on the design quality was improved when it was carried out after the paper sketching and this ordering produced a more effective outcome for the proportion and composition aspects. Finally, our results show that IVR design quality is related to learner behaviors such as the time spent on designing and the number of simulations used. This study demonstrates the effectiveness of IVR applications in supporting designing skills and how effectiveness can be improved by combining it with a conventional method of practice.

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We present an eye-tracking study in the context of Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) videos. We propose to use a pre-test as a way of priming students about the video content before they watch the video. In this study, we used two versions of the same pre-test: textual and schema based. The results show that priming has an effect on the learning gain as well as the gaze patterns of students as they watch the videos; the type of priming has an effect on whether students spend more time looking at textual or schema video elements.@en

We present an eye-tracking study to show the different gaze patterns across the MOOC learners. We hypothesize that the pretests can be used to shape the attention of the students. Moreover we also proposed a collaborative add on activity to the learning material for the students to help them reflect on the material they learnt in the MOOC video. What comes out of the present study is two different interaction styles that differentiate the goodstudents from the poor students. The good students engage with the teacher/collaboratingpartner through the interface/display. While the poor students engage with the material only. We name these two interaction styles as “looking through” and “looking at” respectively.@en

Activating student knowledge (ASK) before receiving learning materials improves their learning outcome (Tormey and LeDuc (2014)). We implement ASK through priming by using two versions of the same pretest in a dual eye-tracking study in a MOOC context. We propose an additional activity, a collaborative concept-map, based on the MOOC lecture to enable the students to reflect on what they learnt. The priming affects the learning gain, individual and collaborative gaze patterns. Textual priming stands better than schema priming in terms of learning outcome. Finally, the pairs having participants with similar gaze to each other have more learning gain.@en