How Florist Apprentices Explore Bouquet Designs: Supporting Design Space Exploration for Vocational Students

Pierre Dillenbourg, Kevin Gonyop Kim, Catharine Regina Monika Maria Oertel Genannt Bierbach
2021
Article

Résumé

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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https://infoscience.epfl.ch/record/284677?ln=fr

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Pierre Dillenbourg, Kevin Gonyop Kim, Catharine Regina Monika Maria Oertel Genannt Bierbach
2021
Article

Résumé

Official source

https://infoscience.epfl.ch/record/284677?ln=fr

À propos de ce résultat

Concepts associés (21)

Concepts associés

Chargement

Publications associées (29)

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Design and evaluation of digital tools to expand experience in vocational education

Kevin Gonyop Kim

Vocational education and training (VET) is the most popular form of upper-secondary education in Switzerland, with more than two-thirds of the teenagers enrolling in a VET program after finishing their compulsory education. The vast majority of the Swiss VET systems have a dual-track structure where students learn in schools for one or two days per week while they do an apprenticeship in a company for the remaining days. Their professional competencies are developed through a combination of workplace experiences reinforced by the theoretical knowledge learned in school.While the apprenticeship at workplaces provides valuable experience to the learners, one concern is that there is a lack of diversity in the experiences of an individual apprentice. Motivated by this limited experience of VET learners in the workplace, the goal of our research has been to explore the possibilities of expanding their experiences. Focusing on design-related professions in VET, we consider exploring digital variations of a design as a way to expand the original experience related to the design. The research objectives of this thesis are (1) exploring possibilities to expand the experience of learners in design-related VET and (2) investigating the potential benefits of the expanded experience. To accomplish the research objectives, we formalize the idea of expanding experience for VET learners by defining the three dimensions of expansion: parametric, temporal, and social. We explore these three dimensions in three studies.For the parametric dimension, we investigate how learners explore a multidimensional space of possible designs using a digital tool and how we can support the process with an interface that enables disentangled exploration of design parameters. We present a tool called BloomGraph that has been developed for florist apprentices to explore flower bouquet designs, and the results from an experimental study that investigates the effectiveness of a graph interface for design exploration.For the temporal dimension, we explore how we can support the VET learners with envisioning the designs that change over time. We present a virtual-reality tool called GardenVR developed for gardener apprentices that allows creating a garden and exploring it in an immersive environment. In an experimental study with gardener apprentices, we investigate how they explore the time dimension using the tool, compare the tool with the current method of practice, paper-sketching, and study how the two interfaces can be combined in an instructional design to enhance the design outcome.Lastly, for the social dimension, we present a tool called Mixplorer that has been designed for a classroom scenario of gardener apprentices. The tool provides a way to socially explore design spaces by allowing the apprentices to create an initial design and recombine it with the designs of other learners. We present the results of two studies conducted using the tool that investigate its feasibility in the VET setting, potential benefits for the learners, and the effectiveness of the design-mixing process in creative practices.

EPFL2022

Chargement

Augmented Reality to Facilitate a Conceptual Understanding of Statics in Vocational Education

Lorenzo Lucignano

At the core of the contribution of this dissertation there is an augmented reality (AR) environment, StaticAR, that supports the process of learning the fundamentals of statics in vocational classrooms, particularly in carpentry ones. Vocational apprentices are expected to develop an intuition of these topics rather than a formal comprehension. We have explored the potentials of the AR technology for this pedagogical challenge. Furthermore, we have investigated the role of physical objects in mixed-reality systems when they are implemented as tangible user interfaces (TUIs) or when they serve as a background for the augmentation in handheld AR. This thesis includes four studies. In the first study, we used eye-tracking methods to look for evidences of the benefits associated to TUIs in the learning context. We designed a 3D modelling task and compared users' performance when they completed it using a TUI or a GUI. The gaze measures that we analysed further confirmed the positive impact that TUIs can have on the learners' experience and enforced the empirical basis for their adoption in learning applications. The second study evaluated whether the physical interaction with models of carpentry structures could lead to a better understanding of statics principles. Apprentices engaged in a learning activity in which they could manipulate physical models that were mechanically augmented, allowing for exploring how structures react to external loads. The analysis of apprentices' performance and their gaze behaviors highlighted the absence of clear advantages in exploring statics through manipulation. This study also showed that the manipulation might prevent students from noticing aspects relevant for solving statics problems. From the second study we obtained guidelines to design StaticAR which implements the magic-lens metaphor: a tablet augments a small-scale structure with information about its structural behavior. The structure is only a background for the augmentation and its manipulation does not trigger any function, so in the third study we asked to what extent it was important to have it. We rephrased this question to whether users would look directly at the structure instead of seeing it only through a tablet. Our findings suggested that a shift of attention from the screen to the physical object (a structure in our case) might occur in order to sustain users' spatial orientation when they change positions. In addition, the properties of the gaze shift (e.g. duration) could depend on the features of the task (e.g. difficulty) and of the setup (e.g. stability of the augmentation). The focus of our last study was the digital representation of the forces that act in a loaded structure. From the second study we observed that the physical manipulation failed to help apprentices understanding the way the forces interact with each other. To overcome this issue, our solution was to combine an intuitive representation (springs) with a slightly more formal one (arrows) which would show both the nature of the forces and the interaction between them. In this study apprentices used the two representations to collaboratively solve statics problems. Even though apprentices had difficulties in interpreting the two representations, there were cases in which they gained a correct intuition of statics principles from them. In this thesis, besides describing the designed system and the studies, implications for future directions are discussed.

EPFL2018

Chargement

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Exploring design space is an important process in finding solutions to a design task. In this paper, we present BloomGraph, an online application developed for florist apprentices to explore the space of bouquet designs. BloomGraph provides a graph-based interface that allows users to explore design variations as they follow the nodes in a graph. This paper presents the preliminary result from an experimental study with florist apprentices in vocational education in Switzerland. Based on the early findings, we discuss the potential of the application as a learning tool and address the next steps to be followed.

SPRINGER INTERNATIONAL PUBLISHING AG2019

Chargement

Augmented Reality to Facilitate a Conceptual Understanding of Statics in Vocational Education

Lorenzo Lucignano

EPFL2018

Design and evaluation of digital tools to expand experience in vocational education

Kevin Gonyop Kim

EPFL2022