In the design of our technology we adopted a constructive stance, believing that the develop- ment of a qualitative understanding of statics requires to engage learners in rich sense-making activities. An intuitive knowledge of such topic requires to be constructed through active learn- ing processes in the sense that “learner engages in appropriate cognitive processing during learning (e.g., selecting relevant incoming information, organizing it into a coherent mental structure, and integrating it with relevant prior knowledge)”(Mayer, 2009). Our technology is meant to be integrated in a pedagogical activity to support such appropriate cognitive processes. It does not prescribe a specific pedagogy and, as such, it can serve both active instructional methods, such as guided discovery or collaborative activities, and passive ones (e.g. principled presentations).
The studies presented in this thesis concerned discovery-based activities which we imagined to complement traditional class sessions. When we evaluated our design choices, an immediate learning outcome consisted in the evaluation of students’ performance in statics problem solving exercises before, during and after a given activity. This kind of assessment allowed us to gain insights about learners’ difficulties and common mistakes. However, since our learning objective could not be achieved through single interventions, our activities often did not lead to significant learning improvements.
Hence, the correctness of the students’ solutions could not be the only desired outcome. We investigated also how the discovery was affected by the design variations, for example, in terms of similarity between novices and experts in solving statics problems or according to the quality of the verbalization of learners’ reasoning. We have previously mentioned that an obstacle to the construction of a correct intuition of statics and, more broadly, physics is represented by the body of misconceptions built from everyday observations. Hence, a successful design would be one that challenges students’ prior knowledge and help to identify analogies or crucial differences between case scenarios. Engaging learners in an exploratory activity makes them generate their own ways of framing problems, ideas, explanations and solutions. These productions would be often incorrect or suboptimal and they would lead to a unsuccessful attempt to solve the given problems. Nevertheless, the rationale for having such generative phase could be found in the preparation for future learning (PFL) principles(Bransford and Schwartz, 1999). According to the PFL framework, before introducing learners to the correct methods and solutions, students should engage in activities meant to stimulate their curiosity and to build a type of prior knowledge called perceptual differentiation. The term refers, for instance, to the ability of distinguishing meaningful details in the description of a problem from irrelevant features. Students develop this ability by analysing and comparing cases that
2.3. Refined Research Objectives
are carefully designed for such purpose (contrasting cases). These cases could be generated by the learners through an exploratory activity, but the important aspect is that learners eventually confront their productions with the canonical solutions (Schwartz and Martin, 2004; Kapur, 2008). In this way, learners can deeply appreciate such solutions and understand the issues that led to their formulation. The PFL framework has found application in the design of learning activities about statistics, physics and neuroscience(Schwartz and Martin, 2004; Schwartz et al., 2011; Schneider et al., 2013b). Recently Schneider has discussed the potential of mixed-reality technologies to implement technology-enhanced PFL sequences which leverage on the aforementioned learning benefits (support to spatial cognition, multiple representation, physicality, etc.) to scaffold the generation of hypotheses by the learners (Schneider, 2017). We did not follow the PFL guidelines, since our activities were more open-ended than tradi- tional PFL ones. Furthermore, due to practical constraints, the exploration was not followed by a phase of direct instruction. Even so, we have found in the PFL principles a constructivist- oriented way of assessing the potential of our AR-based learning tool. It could operate under the same assumptions: fostering learners’ intuitions about statics in order to prepare them for what will be taught in a later stage.
3
Research Context
3.1 The Swiss Vocational Education System
The Swiss Vocational Education and Training (VET) provides education at upper-secondary level, enabling young people to enter the labour market and assuring that they gain the bases to become experts in the future.
Approximately two-thirds of all Swiss adolescents attend a vocational education program after finishing their ninth year of compulsory school and around 60.000 federal certificates are annually awarded (SERI). As in other German-speaking countries, most of the VET programs in Switzerland are based on the dual track approach in which apprentices generally spend part of the week in school and the rest in a company. The number of days allocated to the
Chapter 3. Research Context
two locations changes during the year of training, starting with a prevalence of school days in the first year and finishing with one day per week in school at the end of the training. School classes concern general subject matters (e.g. languages, mathematics) and theoretical aspects of the specific vocation (e.g. office skills), which are taught by teachers who usually have working experience in a company before becoming educators.
For the rest of the time the apprentices work in the company with which they have signed the apprenticeship contract. Apprentices are assigned to a supervisor who is usually a senior worker with a license for training young employees. The supervisor helps the apprentices to master the required competences in authentic situations. Within this context they acquire practical skills, learn a professional way of working, and actively take part in the host company’s production processes.
The goals of the dual approach could be summarized in the following points:
• reducing the gap between the training programs and the needs of the labour market; • developing professional competences that enable apprentices to manage current and
future occupational requirements successfully;