Objective: This study investigates whether and how perceived training value varies among fighter pilots participating in a large force exercise (LFE), and whether they expect Live Virtual Constructive (LVC) training to enhance training value of future LFEs.

Background: LVC technology is maturing but its expected training value is under-investigated, especially regarding future LVC in LFEs.

Method: Fighter pilots at a Live-flying LFE answered questionnaires, 120 responses were analyzed statistically. The questions focused on whether the sortie they just flew provided training value, generally and for specific Desired Learning Objectives (DLOs), on whether the inclusion of Virtual and Constructive entities in future LFEs would contribute to training value generally and to the DLOs specifically, and on specific LVC implementation issues.

Results: Ratings of experienced training value varied across DLOs, and DLO ratings varied across Mission types. Fighter pilots were positive toward including Virtual and Constructive entities in LFEs for certain DLOs, mostly for flying a complex mission. DLOs covaried around the factors of LVC-tradeoff advantages and Live advantages, as well as temporal dimensions of planning before a mission and stages of engagement. LVC implementation lessons were extracted.

Conclusion: Fighter pilots are generally moderately positive about LVC in LFEs. The measurement of perceived training value per DLO seems a relevant instrument for investigating perceived training value of an LFE and expected training value of future LVC training.

Combining Live, Virtual, and Constructive (LVC) aircraft in the same training scenario holds promise for developing and enhancing fighter pilot training. The simulator study reported here builds on joint pilot-researcher co-design work of beyond visual range LVC training (LVC-T) scenarios to provide training value to pilots in both Live and Virtual aircraft. One fourship of pilots simulated Live entities by acting under peacetime restrictions, while other pilots acted as during regular Virtual training. The objective was to investigate pilots’ reflections on the implications of LVC-T and on the methodology used to provide hands-on experience of a plausible LVC-T scenario. The purpose is to inform the design and use of future LVC in air combat training from the perspective of training value. Results indicate that pilots are positive toward the LVC scenario design, especially the dynamics that a large-scale scenario brings to training of decision making. They indicate a high degree of presence, the need for specific regulations to enforce flight safety, and that restrictions put on the simulated Live entities had implications for the other pilots. In addition to regular Live (L) and simulator (V + C) training, LVC-T may enhance pilots’ repertoires and decision-making patterns.

Recently, virtual reality (VR) technology has become more widespread. Humans increasingly interact with information in VR, and a detailed look into those activities is warranted. Thus, a scoping literature review (PRISMA-ScR) is conducted. It overviews all relevant literature about information-seeking behaviour in VR, focusing on existing models and theories. Out of 536 publications, 37 qualify for this review. Eight publications show an understanding related to information behaviour theories from information science. Pressingly, no publications relate models, frameworks or general theories of information seeking to VR. This review overviews VR-related cognitive and behavioural human factors based on this research gap. Those factors include immersion and presence, affordances, embodiment, cognitive load, human error, flow and engagement. The review is concluded with an explorative framework for future research that is constructed with Marchionini’s process model of information seeking as a baseline and in conjunction with the discussed human factors.

This article presents and analyses pedagogical patterns, a design support resource, proposed to upper secondary teachers for technology-supported solutions to educational problems intended for teachers with limited experience of teaching with technology. It analyses pedagogical patterns to understand how they reflect the characteristics of learning theories. The analysis is done by applying an existing framework that gathers three spectra consisting of key components of learning: Information–Experience, Individual–Social, and Reflection–Non-reflection. In a workshop series, pedagogical patterns were created by teachers recognised for their use of technology in teaching, and these patterns constitute data for analysis. The components of learning in the pedagogical patterns have been derived from 23 solutions, or learning activities, for effective use of technology through deductive thematic analysis. The analysis reveals that the solutions involve various pedagogical components but that individual and reflective solutions are most common, thus indicating the kind of pedagogy that is considered suitable for less experienced teachers. We conclude that the method suggested for analysis contributes to research within technology-enhanced learning TEL. It can expand knowledge about the pedagogy involved in learning designs that support the use of technology in education. Adopting a participatory design approach in workshops can moreover contribute to the collegial learning of teachers.

Denna rapport fokuserar på luftstridsträningskonceptet Live, Virtual och Constructive (LVC). Två studier med fokus på LVC som träningskoncept och dess träningsvärde genomfördes i anslutning till Arctic Challenge Exercise 2021 (ACE 21). I den första studien fyllde flygförare i en enkät med fokus på upplevt träningsvärde relativt lärandemål för genomförda flygpass, samt frågor om LVC som framtida träningskoncept. I den andra studien reflekterade flygförare som deltagit vid ACE 21 kring träningsvärde av LVC och erhållna svar från enkäten. Enkätresultaten visar att skattningar av upplevt träningsvärde varierar mellan de olika lärandemålen och mellan olika uppdragstyper med avseende på det uppdrag som just flugits. Träningsvärdet hos de olika lärandemålen samvarierar kring olika stadier av uppdragsplanering och -genomförande. Från den andra studien kan konstateras att flygförarna identifierade både styrkor och svagheter med att inkludera V- och C-entiteter i luftstridsövningar. Särskilt viktigt att poängtera är att de inte har tilltro till att C-entiteter kan ersätta flygförare på blå sida i verkliga flygfarkoster. Flygförarna är positiva till att introducera V- och C-entiteter för att kunna genomföra stora scenarier, särskilt om de agerar på motståndarsidan. Slutligen konstateras att skattning av upplevt träningsvärde relativt definierade lärandemål utgör ett tolkningsbart instrument för att undersöka träningsvärde vid stora luftstridsövningar. 

Live virtual constructive (LVC) flight simulations mix pilots flying actual aircraft, pilots flying in simulators, and computer- generated forces, in joint scenarios. Training resources invested in LVC scenarios must give a high return, and therefore pilots in both live aircraft and simulators need to experience training value for the extensive resources invested in both, an aspect not emphasized in current LVC research. Thus, there is a need for a function, in this article described as LVC Allocator, which assures that complex LVC training scenarios include aspects of training value for all participants, and, thus, purposefully align scenario design with training value. A series of workshops were carried out with 16 fast-jet pilots articulating the training challenges that LVC could contribute to solving, and allocating LVC entities in a training scenario design exercise. The training values for LVC included large scenarios, weapon delivery, flight safety, adversary performance, and weather dependence. These values guided the reasoning of how to allocate different entities to L, V, or C entities. Allocations were focused on adversaries as V, keeping entity types together, weather dependence, low-alti- tude and supersonic flying requirements, and to let L entities handle and lead complex tasks to keep the human in the loop.

Simulator training is becoming increasingly important for training of time-critical and dynamic situations. Hence, how simulator training in such domains is planned, carried out and followed up becomes important. Based on a model prescribing such crucial aspects, ten decision-making training simulator facilities have been analyzed from an activity theoretical perspective. The analysis reveals several conflicts that exist between the training that is carried out and the defined training objectives. Although limitations in technology and organization are often alleviated by proficient instructors, it is concluded that there is a need for a structured approach to the design of training to be able to define the competencies and skills that ought to be trained along with relevant measurable training goals. Further, there is a need for a pedagogical model that takes the specifics of simulator training into account. Such a pedagogical model is needed to be able to evaluate the training, and would make it possible to share experiences and make comparisons between facilities in a structured manner.

This chapter outlines a perspective on designs for learning as a social activity, beyond an understanding of learning as (only) an individual endeavor. It gives a theoretical overview of a design-theoretic approach to learning that can be used not only to analyse and understand new learning sites and practices, but also to organise new collaborative learning environments. In writing of design patterns of technology used in teaching and learning, the teachers are in command, developing their future “learn-places and -spaces”, by way of documenting solutions they have already designed as well sketching on new ones. The concept of infra-structuring was introduced into participatory design to mitigate problems of what happens after a design project is ended. To develop existing pedagogical practices, it seems necessary to existing problem-solving practices and routines, and to encourage the development of new, documented and shared practices.