About the project
Importance and relevance of the project
To a large extent, the future of Europe depends on how well it will succeed in securing and expanding its skilled workforce. This is especially true for nursing and caretaking professions. Today, the labour situation is already extremely tight in this sensitive sector. In the future, the demand for skilled w+
Workers will increase even further due to demographic changes. At the same time, the number of employable persons will decrease.
In Germany alone, depending on the forecast model, there will be a shortage of 150,000 nursing staff by 2035 or even 500,000 by 2030 (2021 – Bertelsmann Stiftung). One of the possibilities to compensate for this deficit is to attract more workforce from abroad, incl. non-EU countries. These people need to possess or acquire not only the required minimum qualification, but also the professional language skills.
One of the emerging opportunities to accelerate the development and improvement of the learning competences has been lately recognized in using the digital reality instruments, including Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR) or a combination of both – Mixed Reality (MR) along with the integrated speech recognition applications supported by Artificial Intelligence (AI). It allows a learner to engage with interactive digital enhancements – individually or in a group – in real or digital worlds simulating a typical working environment and standard situations of the nursing profession. Virtual highly valuable didactic environments comprehend an important number of learning-related strategies and realities, provide freedom in the development process and several valuable and applicable features for foreign language education (Peixoto et al 2021).
The use of gamification along with MR technology in foreign language education has already emerged in recent years, but yet needs to be included in the teaching and learning practice of foreign language education (FLE) for professional use across Europe. The aim of the project is to support digital transformation of FLE in the EU, whilst focusing on filling the existing gaps and raising efficacy of foreign language education for nursing and caretaking students, as well as already qualified professionals, through Immersive Learning Environments that can address the challenges of digitization in educational systems (Hein et al 2021).
First of all, new digital skills are required for the new technologies. The more efficient integration of MR applications in the teaching and training practice is slowed down by a lack of technological knowledge, experience and convenient testing and demonstration environments.
Secondly, mechanisms of the cross-discipline collaboration of foreign language teachers, media didactics specialists, software developers etc. in the process of MR applications design and production are needed.
Thirdly, in order to achieve the main goal which is a successful integration of MR applications into FLE for healthcare professions, the partners want to collect, analyse and organise the current knowledge and experience gathered at the partner organisations, other higher education institutions (HEI) and vocational education and training (VET) institutions across Europe and around the globe, defining and adopting best practices and finding new solutions of MR applications development and integration into teaching and learning. MR-supported foreign language instruction facilitates language learning and significantly improves student learning outcomes. Previous evidence-based research (Scrivner et al., 2019) has shown that immersive technologies such as VR are “an ideal instrument for language instruction”. Thanks to the complexity of the set objectives, the project responds to both priorities of the Digital Education Action Plan (2021-2027): “Fostering the development of a high-performing digital education ecosystem” and “Enhancing digital skills and competences for the digital transformation”.
Expected impact of the project
The expected overall result would be improving the speed and efficiency of foreign language education for healthcare professions, thus securing replenishment of the labour market with new workers from abroad in fields of nursing and caretaking, i.e. overall quality of healthcare in Europe. To achieve this the consortium plans to solve the following problems and achieve the following tangible outcomes:
To develop a methodology and recommendations on selection of the educational contents best suitable for use in mixed reality applications. To identify digitization potentials it is required to map the contents of medical language courses suitable for use in current state-of-the-art consumer-grade immersive MR applications.
To develop a methodology and a set of tools for a productive interdisciplinary collaboration between teaching personnel in nursing and care and foreign language education professionals involved in design, programming and testing of MR applications. The mechanism is required for a time- and cost-efficient production of the digital learning materials.
To develop a testing and demonstration toolkit for: - experiencing and understanding of the technology; - bringing up basic operational skills to the teaching and training staff of the language education providers; - selecting and adopting functions and settings provided by MR simulation technology corresponding to the specific requirements of training programmes suitable to train particular professional language skills in nursing and caretaking.
To develop pilot MR-based foreign language education modules, based on 3D graphics or computer-generated imagery (CGI), augmented reality with integrated speech recognition functions for practical application of training scenarios in medical language teaching curriculum and teaching and learning practice.
To conduct an empirical study on the impact of training scenarios on learning success in professional language skills improvement for nursing and caretaking.
To develop the up-to-date guidelines based on the implemented procedure.
To develop a training course on design, development, adjustment of MR training modules and their integration into foreign language teaching and learning.
These outcomes will be implemented in the following four project results:
DR FLEMP Guidelines: Methodology and Recommendations on development of Mixed Reality applications for foreign language education in nursing and caretaking
DR FLEMP Mixed reality testing and demonstration toolkit
Two MR-supported language training modules
DR FLEMP Training course
Additional value on the European level will be achieved through the use of synergy effects generated by the collaboration with the project partners to facilitate a faster implementation of MR technology in European professional language education, building a pan European expert network to share skills and experiences of MR integration in education through collaborative project activities, researchers’ and teachers’ exchange, joint learning and training activities. Support deeper integration of MR technology in European language education for healthcare professions and nursing, in particular. These results should serve as a further contribution to the Digital Education Action Plan (2021-2027), fostering the development of a high-performing digital education ecosystem, including three of four required elements: – effective digital capacity planning and development, including up-to-date organisational capabilities; – digitally competent and confident teachers and education and training staff; – high-quality learning content, user-friendly tools and secure platforms which respect privacy and ethical standards. The expected results also follow the provisions of the European Skills Agenda in general and, especially, the Osnabrück Declaration focusing on establishing a new lifelong learning culture – relevance of C-VET and digitalisation.