Digitalisation plays an important role in the transformation processes of VET all over Europe. European stakeholders stated multiple recommendations such as digital competence frameworks (Carretero et al., 2017; Redecker & Punie, 2017). According to that, VET has to distinguish two phenomenon of digital change. The first affects vocational work processes due to introduction of digital processes or tools (e.g. Goller et al., 2021). The second concerns the design of digitised learning and teaching processes (Dobricki et al., 2020) and is the focus of the contribution.

In TVET, teaching and learning often utilizes the opportunities of situated or workplace learning approaches (e.g. Lave & Wenger, 2011). Many current approaches in learning media development model learning situations in virtual reality (e.g. Aarkrog, 2021) and reduce situational attributes due to increasing complexity in a negative way from a perspective of situated learning (Teräs & Moreno Herrera, 2019). Thus, innovations should integrate digital learning technologies in real learning situations to offer opportunities through their use.

Apprentices in the German dual VET system have expertise regarding to work practice and situational constraints of work activity. This offers potentials when incorporating them to improve learning media development. The paper introduces an innovative didactical concept based on augmented reality (AR) to foster competence acquisition in work-based learning processes of company-based TVET. Moreover, there could also be a use case in vocational schools, whereby apprentices might contribute in the development process.

The intended AR-system detects and tracks actions in technical vocational work processes of apprentices with the help of digital twins digitally mapping the structure and behaviour of the real learning environment. Furthermore, the system enables to simulate vocational actions virtually in order to identify errors and prospective consequences (Schluse et al., 2018). Augmented Reality by head-mounted displays offers the functionality to visualise hazardous error consequences to support learning processes (Cattaneo & Boldrini, 2017) while stopping negative incidents in the real world. This is the key surplus upon traditional learning media usage enhancing situated learning with a new dimension what contradicts the assistance paradigm of economical rationalisation activities (e.g. Wang et al., 2016). Data logging on a cloud platform and the simulation allow virtually replaying actions to evaluate them in the light of various guiding ideas such as ecology (Rauner, 2013) in reflection processes.

Due to the technical complexity for two learning scenarios in injection moulding and CNC turning of company-based VET, the development team built multiple prototypes. The final prototype allows mimicking vocational learning tasks on an injection moulding machine mock-up that might have a second life as learning media in vocational schools. The arising research question focuses on the optional continuing improvement of this prototype as standalone learning media. Next to their feedback on the system entities such as AR glasses, apprentices counsel the development process regarding to abilities to simulate work characteristics of practice in school.

Therefore, the paper asks, which technical adaptions do apprentices of German dual VET suggest in order to improve the prototype for a stand-alone integration in school-based learning processes. Do these suggestions constitute situated learning characteristics?

The paper publishes data from a user study with apprentices from the dual VET system in Germany. Apprentices participating in the study have to perform an open learning task on quality assessment of a work piece in order to evaluate its quality concerning standards and customer demands. Furthermore, they have to reproduce the exact same work piece using the prototype mock-up of a real injection-moulding machine. While working on these vocational tasks, participants wear a Microsoft HoloLens 2 as a head-mounted display that visualises details of the machine e.g. a virtual representation of the machine tool and situational feedback e.g. results of an initiated automated measurement. Moreover, they use smart tools such as a scale to measure masses that provide the simulation with information on their technical vocational actions. The investigation surveys usability measures for the optimisation of the technical learning system. The short version of the ISONORM usability questionnaire (Prümper, 1997) comprises seven different scales with five items each on relevant topics for good usability. On top of the quantitative usability measures, the study conducts qualitative feedback in the form of recommendations for improvements. An open question format helps to get additional information on their perceptions of the system. The participants complete the online survey using an iPad with an attached keyboard after they finished the learning task. The task design in combination with linked feedback surveys plans a maximum test time of 90 minutes.

Not only do the results support the development process of the technical learning system, but they also contribute useful information on the necessary efforts to spin-off an additional learning solution. From a didactical perspective, we expect findings on the task complexity and the number of action repetitions. The latter is important to design the reduction scheme for the logged data in order to provide in-company trainers with a compact documentation for the reflexion process. Furthermore, based on didactical considerations it is expected that missing technical details will be part of important situational characteristics. Since the study is ongoing, the stated results on the technical perspective are based on verbal feedback of the participants during the study. From a technical perspective, we expect the apprentices to comment especially on the head-mounted display in their feedback. In addition, we expect hints regarding improvements of the graphical user interface of the machine mock-up, because the development team did only focus on mirroring all necessary details and did not provide all options of the real machine. In the same way, we expect them to give feedback on the impact of the prototype on their work process, which usually iterates the manufacturing process, and which is not feasible in the current setup. We hope to get some responses from a user perspective that help to improve not only the prototype but also the projected implementation with real machinery at workplaces in TVET departments of cooperating companies.

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