Soft-skills VR training - CLASS

Contracting Party: Italian Ministry of Education, Universities and Research, Directorate General for Research

Period: 2023-2024

Description:

The CLASS project is a 12-month project funded by the Italian Ministry of Education, Universities and Research, Directorate General for Research, through the Fund for Research in the Economic and Social Field. It aims at comparing three different teaching and learning methods, namely: one that focuses on helping students develop their metacognition; one that involves the use of Virtual Reality (VR) to further strengthen this skill; and finally, the traditional method.

The Project will cooperate with three state secondary technical and/or professional schools located in the suburbs of Rome, which will participate in the delivery of the teaching and learning activities with a group of students from disadvantaged backgrounds or with cognitive, affective and social needs.

The research hypothesis of CLASS is that metacognitive strategies improve the learning process and the engagement of socio-culturally disadvantaged students, and that the use of VR can further enhance the benefits of this type of strategies. This hypothesis will be validated through research activities, the development of teaching and learning protocols, the development of an application in VR, the training of teachers in the use of VR, the implementation of the teaching and learning method including the use of VR, and the monitoring and evaluation of the results of the research study.