Visual expertise is a fundamental proficiency in many vocations and many questions have risen on the topic, with studies looking at experts and novices differences’ in observation (e.g., radiologists) or at ways to help novices achieve visual expertise (e.g., through annotations). However, most of these studies focus on white-collar professions and overlook vocational ones. For example, observing is uttermost important for fashion designers who spend most of their professional time on visual tasks related to creating patterns and garments or performing alterations. Therefore, this study focuses on trying to convey a professional way to look at images by exposing apprentices to images annotated (e.g., circles) by experts and identifying if their gaze (e.g., fixation durations and gaze coverage) and verbalisations (i.e., images descriptions) are affected. The study was conducted with 38 apprentices that were exposed to sequential sets of images depicting shirts, first non-annotated (pre-test), then annotated for the experimental group and non-annotated for the control group (training 1 and training 2), and finally non-annotated (post-test). Also, in the pre and post-test and in training 2 apprentices had to verbally describe each image. Gaze was recorded with the Tobii X2–60 tracker. Results for fixation durations showed that the experimental group looked longer in the annotated part of the shirt in training 1 and in the shirt’s central part at post-test. However, the experimental group did not cover a significantly larger area of the shirt compared to control and verbalisations show no difference between the groups at post-test.@en

Immersive virtual reality (IVR) offers possibilities of creating a learner-centric environment that can provide more presence and engagement for students leading to an enhanced learning experience compared to conventional classroom practices. However, the potential of IVR in vocational education and training (VET) has not yet been explored in-depth, and it is an open question of whether it can effectively support learner creation in a designing task. In this paper, we present an IVR application developed to support gardener apprentices in designing gardens. Using this application, we conducted an experimental study with gardener apprentices to investigate the effect of the IVR interface compared to paper sketching and learner behavior on the proportion, composition, and creativity of the design outcome. Additionally, we investigated how it can be combined with a paper sketching activity to improve its effectiveness. Our analysis shows that the IVR interface can be more effective for the proportion aspect, but this may be limited to students that are able to use it after working with paper. In terms of the combination order, the effectiveness of IVR on the design quality was improved when it was carried out after the paper sketching and this ordering produced a more effective outcome for the proportion and composition aspects. Finally, our results show that IVR design quality is related to learner behaviors such as the time spent on designing and the number of simulations used. This study demonstrates the effectiveness of IVR applications in supporting designing skills and how effectiveness can be improved by combining it with a conventional method of practice.

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