Let’s reminisce back in the days, when you were 14 years old. You just finished Secondary Modern school, and you are about to make (professional) decisions which might have a huge impact for the rest of your life. Not an easy one. You might get a lot of information about different school types and vocational programs in school, on educational fairs or find them online. Especially when looking for a vocational program, you might get tons of theoretical information, but how these jobs will look like in real life is often very difficult to imagine.
A wide variety of media can be used to present information. Most of these media approaches provide a very superficial impression and the chances to get deeper insights into the job are quite low.
For this topic, I was inspired by my nephew. He is 14 years old and currently attending the “Polytechnische Schule”. Next fall he will start a vocational program, but where he will end up is not defined yet. In the first semester of his last year at school the pupils have two weeks in total to get deeper insights first experiences into the chosen companies. It is their choice where they want to go but the options are limited especially in the region where I grew up. When I was in the same situation if I want to continue attending further school or choosing a vocational program, I did not really know what I want to become. I was still motivated to learn and therefore I chose to get further education. Even though I had access to all the information I needed, I was not able to get a more practical insight into different programs and jobs.
Therefore, I was asking myself, how can pupils at the age between 12 and 15 get a more and deeper insights into different vocational programs. First ideas which go into the direction of Virtual Environment (VE) have been researched but need to be more examined. For further research I want to analyze different media approaches and kinds of infotainment.
Sources
Checa, David, und Andres Bustillo. „A review of immersive virtual reality serious games to enhance learning and training“. Multimedia Tools and Applica- tions 79, Nr. 9 (1. März 2020): 5501–27. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11042-019- 08348-9.
Ferguson, Chris, Egon L. van den Broek, und Herre van Oostendorp. „On the role of interaction mode and story structure in virtual reality serious games“. Computers & Education 143 (1. Januar 2020): 103671. https://doi. org/10.1016/j.compedu.2019.103671.
Makransky, Guido, Gustav Petersen, und Sara Klingenberg. „Can an Immersive Virtual Reality Simulation Increase Students’ Interest and Career Aspirations in Science?“ British Journal of Educational Technology 51 (22. April 2020). https://doi.org/10.1111/bjet.12954.
Österreichische Gewerkschaftsjugend. „Zahlen & Fakten zur Lehre“, o. J. https://www.oegj.at/meine-situation/ich-bin-lehrling/fakten-zur-lehre.
Veermans, Koen, und Tomi Jaakkola. „Pedagogy in Educational Simulations and Games“. In VR, Simulations and Serious Games for Education, herausge- geben von Yiyu Cai, Wouter van Joolingen, und Zachary Walker, 5–14. Singa- pore: Springer Singapore, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-2844- 2_2.
