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2.2 Experiences and pre-knowledge in VR

Question 3.3 attempted to get an overview of whether and to what extent the sample has had
experiences in dealing with VR so far, whether this was taken as positive or negative and what

lessons could be learned from them. The results to this question can best be summarised as fol-
lows: Yes, VR is already known - but no more!

Almost all respondents seem to have heard of VR and basically know what it is about. However,
the number of those who have received specific presentations about VR or have even worn VR

glasses themselves is quite small (especially among the group of trainers, among stakeholders and

experts it looks a bit better).

Especially in France and Italy, the group of people who have already tested VR and also partly used

it in the classroom was larger than in other countries; however, this did not allow any representa-
tive conclusions for these or other countries of the study - the target groups are much too small

for that. But even in these countries, the impression was more likely to be that these were initial
pilot tests and individual actions and not a systematic application of VR in the classroom, which is

based on a strategic orientation of curricula and training programmes, comprehensive equipment
with hardware and software and, above all, an intentional training of the trainers in advance.

Nevertheless, those people who already have a little experience with VR gave important feedback
on what was positive and what they see more critically; the advantages were naturally seen where

comprehensive visualisations are helpful, the disadvantages are often seen on the social level and
the technical complexity of some hard and soft ware.

On the whole, however, it can be assumed that whoever deals with VR learning in vocational train-
ing for young people will encounter little concrete prior knowledge and predetermined quality

standards or guidelines, neither within the educational policy makers and expert nor within the
VET trainers in the countries of the partnership (Italy, France, Spain, Poland, Ireland Austria). This

of course has the disadvantages of starting VETREALITY training from scratch and at the lowest
level, relying on little existing frameworks. On the other hand, the project group can work out its

own specifications, guidelines and content very freely from national standards and frameworks.

Some of the most important direct feedbacks from the Focus Groups were:

• Regarding previous experience with VR, there is a certain range between "none/very lit-
tle" and "a little" in the countries - but no country reported sufficient knowledge and/or

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