Abstract:

In correlation with current technological developments in Industry 4.0, the interest in human centered learning and training systems increases. Human centered learning systems allow shortened training time, satisfied employees and long-lasting learning. To address the individual needs and to design and develop adaptive learning systems, this paper presents an approach on how to gain a detailed understanding of the learner needs in a long-term workplace training, hereinafter called learner needs assessment (LNA). In the following research case, a user centered learning system is developed in cooperation with a research institute and an international dental company. The workplace training targets the manufacturing of unique dental prostheses. It comprises the development of extensive vocational and methodological expertise and the manual dexterity to perform the manufacturing. The primary goals of the LNA are to get an understanding of the user profiles, the training environments and processes and to get an understanding of current learning phases and their cognitive, social or physical challenges.

To gain detailed results of the subsequent methods, a trustful communication culture with strong privacy policies between the researchers and the examined people of the workplace is essential. Starting with observations on-site, employees give first insights about the actual processes and challenges in cognition or motoric abilities. Here, the Think-Aloud method is used, in which the subjects continuously speak out loud their thoughts or expectations, while performing a comparable task. During the observation, the subject is filmed, including eye tracking that allows a detailed comprehension of actions in the data analysis. Afterwards, we conducted semi-structured interviews comprising of a retrospective trip to their learning phases and progress. Finally, a standardized questionnaire surveys the social connection, competition and self-fulfillment through rating scales.

While the number of subjects depends on the complexity of learning units and user groups, we assessed ten employees. After the gathering of all findings, the retrieved data is analyzed and clustered into an affinity diagram regarding topics that are prepared and novel topics that are discovered by new pattern findings. The findings can include observation results, highlights of statistical evaluations, meaningful quotes of the subjects, ideas and problems. Furthermore, a modified version of the customer journey mapping technique; originally used in the field of marketing, is proposed. On one side, it helps to present the overall learning progress of a representative user and the relation between emotional curves, specific environmental impacts that inhibit the progress and the targeted learning progress. On the other side, it gives space to creatively find solutions at specific points of interest. In this case, one of the outcomes is a much higher emotional stress level because of the direct comparison to very experienced employees. As a solution, a learning phase wise environment change with a digital competitor, who is only slightly better than the learning employee is proposed. Also the finding of an underestimated training time with phase shifts between individuals, lead to changes and contextual adaptive learning units in the design. With this approach of understanding and processing the learner needs, the goal is to improve and enable long-lasting learning on the job.

Keywords:

Learner Needs Assessment, Learner Journey Map, Workplace Learning, Human Centered Design, User Experience.