Enhancing soft skills through Extended Reality in the post-COVID era

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted educational systems and required new forms of adaptation in teacher education. So, the introduction of new didactics became necessary. VR can significantly impr...

The main goal of the XR_Skill project was to reinforce the ability of education and training institutions to provide high-quality training facing the challenges of the post-COVID era. The focus was on building the capacity to implement digital education and to develop and use high-quality digital content such as innovative online resources and tools, enrich curricula, and improve undergraduate and postgraduate students and psychologists' soft skills in the use of Virtual Reality for training and education. In addition, another aim was to create and promote 'digital confidence', a new skill introduced through this project that focuses on the feeling of being able to manage technology and transfer it in other contexts. The project addressed these aims by developing educational materials on the use of VR in education as well as a VR-based game which were tested and validated by all partners through pilots. The positive results of the pilot implementation of the project methodology revealed an increase in teachers’ confidence reducing thus the negative emotional impact of COVID-19 and a general empowerment in using new technologies for soft skills training.

The XR_Skill project's main idea was to train undergraduate and postgraduate students and psychologists in the use of VR for the enhancement of teachers' and educators' soft skills through a course and a VR game developed by the consortium. The project has successfully completed all 4 results with their corresponding activities, the management processes, quality evaluation and risk assessment processes, and dissemination activities. More specifically: R1: “XR_Skill materials and pilot”: needs identification, development of training materials, and pilot testing. - Desk Research in all partner countries. - Development of training materials on the use of VR for soft skills training (5 modules - 1. Attention and Stress, 2. Environment and Setting – Virtual Environments, 3. Virtual Reality – History and Technology, 4. Stress management through VR, 5. XR_Skills game). - Evaluation of the Training Materials - Translation of the modules and uploading on the e-learning platform. - Pilot testing and evaluation of the XR_Skills game in all partner countries. - Dissemination of the advances in the training curriculum The PR2: “XR_SoftSkill”: the development of the VR game for the enhancement of soft skills. - Development of the game definition scheme (105 game situations covering one week of a teacher’s life). - VR game creation - Alpha and beta testing of the game - Finalization of the game - Pilot testing in 5 countries - Users’ evaluation and refinement based on recommendations - Translation of the game The PR3: “Science - Scientific Validation”: validation of the procedure and the outcomes. - Literature review - Development of questionnaires for Scientific Validation - Translation of the questionnaire into Consortium languages - Administration of the battery of tests to pilot participants - Results and recommendations for using the XR_package. - Dissemination of results - Evaluation of the overall quality of the result The PR4: “XR_Platform”: the e-learning platform that stores the materials and makes them accessible to the public. - Development of the platform - Evaluation and recommendations - Translation to partner languages Quality Assurance and Risk Management: activities to improve total quality - Development of a Quality Assurance and Risk Management Plan - 6/month progress quality reports - Annual project Quality reports - Evaluation of project results - Evaluation of project meetings - Dissemination activities: activities to increase project visibility - Development of a Dissemination Plan - Creation of project webpage, social media (Facebook & Instagram), Newsletters (3) Multiplier Events (M.E.) - Organization of 5 M.E. Management - 5 Transnational Project Meetings (1 online and 4 in person)

The results of the project are closely associated with the project activities: research activities with a special focus on University curricula across Europe for developing tailored training materials, creation of the materials and the contents necessary to teach undergraduates and post-graduates on soft skills training, a VR game created which combines the psychological features needed for the upskilling of trainers, a learning platform to support the training, a pilot testing implemented in all partner countries with students and teachers, and finally, multiplier events organized in all partner countries in which students, teachers, educators, and stakeholders tried the VR tool to have first-hand experience of the educational value of the proposed method. More analytically, the concrete outputs and results of the project include: - 1 project website, 2 social media developed and established, 3 newsletters with a total of 10755 people reached. - 5 Desk Research analysis from the 5 partner countries: Sweden, Italy, Portugal, Greece and France. - 1 eLearning platform developed with 5 modules (1. Attention and Stress, 2. Environment and Setting – Virtual Environments, 3. Virtual Reality – History and Technology, 4. Stress management through VR, 5. XR_Skills game) established (in all partner languages - drafted, tested and revised) - A Virtual Reality XR_Skills game specifically designed for enhancing soft skills in education to facilitate work return in the post-COVID era. - 5 local testing of the proposed educational methodology and the XR_Skills game with students and teachers completed in the partner countries - 1 feedback report on the testing of the XR_Skills game from 162 participants in 5 countries. - 1 booklet with a battery of tests for the scientific validation of the XR_Skills methodology and contents - 1 report on Scientific Validation which presents the quality of the training from an evidence-based perspective. - 5 Multiplier Events organized in the partner countries (206 participants) - 1 Dissemination report - 2 project evaluation reports The XR_Skill project has also increased undergraduates' and post-graduates' knowledge and competence for soft skills enhancement, and, at the same time, increased their “digital confidence”. The results from teachers participating in the validation questionnaire survey showed that in the VR condition, teachers demonstrated to be more confident towards the introduction of interactive media in the classroom environment, therefore we can consider it as an increase of the “digital confidence” skill.