Unreal … a Typology for Learning from Virtual Site Visits

ABSTRACT

Experiencing existing spaces and designed environments, as well as engaging with their possibilities and production, is fundamental to students’ learning in construction and built environments disciplines. Site visits serve a range of learning objectives, and offer a place and a mode to practice professional expertise. The major dislocation of learning and teaching precipitated by COVID-19 required reimagining these authentic and valuable site experiences. This article explores the design of virtual site visits (VSVs) through the lens of teaching activities and learning aims, and describes a VSV typology developed through a phenomenographic approach. The typology draws on exemplars and related interviews with designers and educators from across a built environments faculty of a comprehensive Australian university. It distinguishes between those developed to inspire and contextualize; those that demonstrate or demarcate; and those that ground abstract experiences via specific locations. This work suggests complementary roles for virtual and physical site visits within hybrid and flexible learning environments, even while much teaching returns to campus. It is relevant to academic developers who seek to frame the use of VSVs through learning rather than technical lenses, and all educators who aim to incorporate site experiences for student learning … wherever they are.

KEYWORDS:

• Construction education
• distance learning
• site visit
• virtual
• teaching and learning

Introduction

Visiting specific places for the purpose of learning is important to many disciplines and teaching approaches. It offers students the opportunity to engage authentically with domain-specific contexts for construction as part of their learning, and to observe the places and social environments that have shaped a particular discipline. A site can offer starting points for an open-ended question for students to investigate, and a setting in which the outcomes of their work may be ultimately tested.

The extended lockdowns brought by COVID-19 forced a reconceiving of teaching and its approaches, insisting that even those who were within the same city would engage “at a distance.” Residents of Melbourne, Australia, communicated with each other online during the longest time in lockdown endured by any city in the world, but students still needed to learn from places that were out-of-reach.

The aim of this research is to inform a broader understanding of the opportunities for virtual site visits (VSVs) for student learning over distance and to investigate these emerging approaches through a learning design lens. The research has drawn on the experiences of a built environments faculty during lockdown, and the challenging translation of traditional teaching approaches in Construction, Architecture, Urban Planning, Landscape Architecture and related disciplines that previously relied on situated site visits.

This article reports on findings from recent interviews and focus groups with educators who designed VSVs for student learning, contextualizing this through review of published literature on VSVs. It presents a new learning design-focused typology of VSVs that emerged through this work. The article also identifies some key issues impacting the design and/or use of VSVs for learning – levels of abstraction; anticipated student agency; scaffolding of a VSV resource – that were identified through this grounded research approach and relevant to the translation of this work going forward. This work is particularly relevant to educators in construction and built environment fields who incorporate – or seek to incorporate – virtual site visits within their teaching practice.

The site visit in construction and built environments learning

Scholarly contributions to site-based learning or “field trips” have arisen from disciplines across both STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) and HASS (humanities, arts, social sciences), including environmental studies, urban studies, and geography (e.g. Fedesco et al., 2020; Jones & Washko, 2022; Miller et al., 2011). This literature reveals a foundation comprising aspects of experiential learning (Kolb, 1984), as well as place-based learning (Gruenewald, 2003). Outside of higher education, scholarship on site-based learning has also emerged from primary education (Behrendt & Franklin, 2014; Cincera et al., 2015), and from programs outside of formal institutions of learning (Powers, 2004). Select publications discuss the role of field trips as an educational tool to ground students’ understanding of abstract scientific concepts (Behrendt & Franklin, 2014) or in supporting learning through direct experience of place and site (Cincera et al., 2015; Krakowka, 2012). Furthermore, site visits have been observed to contribute positively toward interpersonal relationships, with students reporting a deeper connection to their peers and instructors (Fedesco et al., 2020).

Site visits have long been a fundamental aspect of the education of future professionals in built environments disciplines. As has been reported in literature, site visits may serve a range of pedagogical objectives in the disciplines depending on an individual subject’s intended learning outcomes (Borucka, 2019; Kesim & Baturayoğlu Yöney, 2021). Despite their importance and ubiquity, literature specific to a built environments education context is very limited, with some exceptions outlined below.

Technical or “means and methods” subjects in built environment disciplines may include site visits for a variety of learning purposes. As Mills et al. (2006) note, the site visit is an experiential learning opportunity that introduces students to real-world situations of construction practices. In doing so, students develop a critical contextual understanding of the construction process as part of their learning (Kajewski, 1999; Mills et al., 2006). Furthermore, site-based learning has been shown to help students better understand core concepts of the discipline and increase their enthusiasm for the subject content (Fernández Manzanal et al., 1999; Janovy & Major, 2009). These visits also allow students to communicate with, or expose them to, professionals from various backgrounds, increasing awareness of potential career options (Eiris Pereira & Gheisari, 2019; Lave & Wenger, 1991).

In the context of design education, the concept of “site” may be conceived as a “terrain of intervention” (Burns & Wilson, 2021). Elizabeth Meyer (2020) posits that architecture’s traditional focus on buildings has led to a tacit focus on the lot as the ground for design intervention. However, a more critical understanding suggests “site cannot be reduced solely to its territorial boundaries: as a plot of land or constraint imposed on the penetrable depth for which we build” (Burns & Wilson, 2021). Expanding on this, Kahn and Burns (2020) argue:

Not only are physical design projects always located in a specific place, the work of physical design also necessarily depends on notional understandings about the relationships between a project and a locale. Given that design reconfigures the environment using physical and conceptual means, articulate comprehension of site in physical and conceptual terms should be fundamental. (p. 1)

Notions of “site” overlap with concepts of “place” and its various dimensions as defined across built environments curricula, as well as other academic fields (see Gruenewald, 2003). Kristianova and Joklova (2020) argue that professionals must engage with layered spatial, social, and material conditions, and therefore:

Understanding the site context is crucial for developing appropriate architectural, landscape, and urban design concepts related to local environmental, socio-cultural, and socio-economical factors (p. 5677). Discussion of the “site visit” in contemporary learning soon reveals an apparent dichotomy of “physical” versus “virtual,” a distinction that has become further blurred and complexified by the degree to which our virtual lives are infiltrated by the physical and vice versa (see Popper, 2007; Shields, 2003; Skowron, 2020). Long before the recent pandemic, scholars explored the relative advantages of virtual and physical site visits (Tuthill & Klemm, 2002). Those who advocate for walking as a pedagogical approach suggest that certain embodied, place-based experiences cannot be reproduced or sufficiently approximated using technological platforms (see Jacks, 2004; Vergunst & Ingold, 2008). Likewise, Miller et al. (2011) argue that bodily experiences on physical sites are fundamental to shaping our understandings of a place, suggesting that physical actions are directly connected to cognitive and memory functions. Finally, Kristianova and Joklova (2020) contend that, “Studying space physically brings the benefit of multi-sensory experience, and thus increases the understanding of the way space is arranged.”

Conversely, others have noted the advantages afforded by VSVs, including benefits relating to cost, time, accessibility, and logistics. Table 1 includes a list of these advantages based on the work of Klippel et al. (2019). Within built environments education, VSVs have been utilized for various teaching purposes, typically reported as single subject examples. These include using VSVs to enable students to engage with otherwise inaccessible environments, such as hazardous construction sites (Eiris et al., 2018, 2021) or sensitive heritage sites (George, 2018). Additionally, VSVs have been developed as a way of providing students with asynchronous access to spatially contextualized site information (e.g. Walls, 2021). However, there is limited scholarship that explores the use of VSVs more holistically across built environments education, an area to which this work contributes.

Table 1. Advantages of virtual site visits (adapted from Klippel et al., 2019)

Advantage	Explanation
Accessibility	Provides opportunities to students who otherwise may not be able to go on a PSV
Teaching flexibility and efficiency	Teachers can spend more class time covering concepts while students access VSVs in their own time
Temporal independence	Students can virtually visit the site in the classroom, lab, or at home, independent from the actual site’s location
Safety and practicality:	VSVs allow students to explore remote, inaccessible, or potentially hostile environments in a safe and practical way
Fostering three-dimensional thinking	VSVs provide scalability, enabling students to change their viewpoint for closer inspection of geologic structures or getting an embodied bird’s eye overview perspective. The ability to understand what is seen on different scales helps link features of interest to the location
Contextualisation	By providing access to landscape scales and scaffolding information, VSVs cultivate systemic thinking to help build hierarchical or dynamic links among geologic structures, the ground location, and the area it is part of.

Some scholars have attempted to systematically study the effectiveness of VSVs and have proposed taxonomies and classifications to assist in this. For example, in a recent review of VSVs in construction education, Wen and Gheisari (2020) categorized VSVs based on the construction subject area, assessment techniques and the technology used to produce them. Likewise, Klippel et al. (2019) describe user experience in VSVs within three general categories: basic, plus or advanced. “Basic” VSVs “replicate the actual physical reality of a site” such that “users are confined to the same physical constraints” as for a physical site visit. “Plus” VSVs “offer perspectives and information that cannot be provided in the normal confines of physical reality,” such as a bird’s eye perspective or a side-by-side comparison of two spatially distant buildings. In these, the user remains limited to representations of physical space. “Advanced” VSVs move beyond the physical realm to simulate or describe typically unobservable phenomena or structures. This might include “X-ray vision” to see through structures, or a view of changes to a site over time. This work, while focused on the production of VSV artifacts, and therefore distinct from the questions driving this research, offers a lens on the learning opportunities that various VSVs might engender. Our findings from the recent experience of pandemic disruptions take a different approach to the classification of VSVs, by categorizing approaches based on teaching and learning aims. To the knowledge of the authors, this is a new area of study without precedent within built environments or other disciplinary education.

Teaching challenges and covid-19 lessons

The major disruptions to learning and teaching delivered by the COVID-19 pandemic since 2020 offer an opportunity to reflect on and reimagine the pedagogical value of site visits. This is true within and beyond built environments disciplines, and particularly the application of virtual site visits for teaching over distance. Employing a phenomenographic approach and informed by contemporary built environments education, this paper proposes a typology of site visits and the use of physical, virtual, and hybrid experiences in learning.

The authors are members of the Built Environment Learning + Teaching Group (BEL+T), an academic development group focused on the sustained improvement of education for built environment disciplines at The University of Melbourne, a large, comprehensive, public university in Australia. Established in mid-2018, the group applies creative problem-solving and design-led approaches, evidence-based research methodologies, and project-focused consultancy to improve teaching quality and student engagement. BEL+T draws from its members’ diverse skillsets as designers and researchers to engage with the Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning (ABP) as the location, inspiration, and beneficiary of focused built environments learning and teaching research. As part of this work, BEL+T supports curricular and pedagogical development within ABP through the development of staff-facing resources and consultations relevant to a range of disciplines.

Developing a DIAgram and a place for VSVs

BEL+T was tasked with supporting Faculty educators as teaching moved online in 2020, responding to educators’ concerns and need for guidance, as they urgently sought to relocate teaching and subjects off-campus and online. BEL+T developed and subsequently published a learning design framework to support this work. The DIA model drew on published research, as well as the design training of many members of the group, to present the activities and aims of teaching as a series of interconnected elements. This approach sought to disentangle teaching assumptions, allowing their reconstitution in a new, digital environment, while maintaining a focus on the unchanging intended learning outcomes of specific subjects – ultimately offering an important guiding star for the exercise. Learning artifacts, including VSVs as they developed, could then be considered within a more flexible context that was tailored to each subject. For the purposes of this paper, it is helpful to briefly note the constituent elements of BEL+T’s DIA relational framework that was developed as a “learning design system” (Dalziel, 2008, p. 376), drawing on Oliver’s tripartite model for online learning design (Oliver, 1999, 2001). Further detail of its development, testing, and delivery in response to pedagogical, technical, and cultural challenges of the shift to online teaching is described elsewhere (Thompson et al., 2021).

The DIA centers on, and revolves around, two paired student-focused pedagogical aims: learning engagement and a sense of belonging. These provide focus for three of teaching’s primary activities: delivery of subject content; supporting interaction between students and peers and between students and staff for learning; and effective assessment for learning. These three elements give rise to the title of the DIA model. Presented as interrelated and overlapping, they are connected by coordination, an oft-overlooked but crucially important activity. The significance of coordination for online learning activities is also published elsewhere (Soccio et al., 2021), as is the importance of a supportive learning environment as an essential and encompassing field (Thompson et al., 2021). The DIA framework was tested and iteratively developed over 2020 and 2021, including the development of its representation as a DIAgram (see Figure 1). The framework has offered a scaffold to explore the application of digital tools for learning (Built Environments Learning + Teaching, 2022), to highlight key foci for synchronous teaching to dual-delivery cohorts (i.e., the mixing of online and blended modes of enrollment), and to identify useful approaches to the design of learning management system (LMS) subject sites. The DIA framework was also used to structure the research group’s initial investigation of VSVs within the learning design of subjects in the study reported here.

Figure 1. BEL+T’s learning design diagram (Tregloan, Soccio, Thompson (2021), also in Tregloan & Thompson (2021).

While work on VSVs had commenced by members of BEL+T well before Covid-19, first as a means to communicate spatialized research outcomes (Tregloan et al., 2014) and then as tools to augment “in-the-room” teaching, the disruption of the pandemic and the extended lockdowns and international border closures increased demand for and value of VSVs. BEL+T authored a set of guides for VSVs on various platforms – these focussed primarily on available technologies and their use (Built Environments Learning + Teaching, 2020). VSV approaches were designed to be used by subject coordinators who were likely unable to travel to site and were certainly unable to travel to campus or to receive in-person support. While the guides were designed to allow subject coordinators to develop VSVs independently, BEL+T consulted on these plans and offered remote support and guidance. This provided a unique perspective and an opportunity to observe the diverse use and design of VSVs. The following commentary draws on interview data with subject coordinators exploring the design, development, and inclusion of VSVs through the lens of the published DIA framework. This provides a nuanced understanding around the complex use and multiple opportunities for VSVs as part of learning design. Following this, approaches to VSVs in support of identified learning aims in built environments teaching were identified and are presented below with specific reference examples for each type.

Method

In general, BEL+T tends to employ constructivist grounded theory, an approach toward research in which “the co-construction of meaning and, ultimately, a theory […] is grounded in the participants’ and researchers’ experiences (J. Mills et al., 2006, p. 9). In the case of this study, we opted for a phenomenographic approach, a qualitative method commonly used in educational contexts in which researchers “look for the most distinctive details in the data to identify ‘structurally significant differences’ in how individuals define their experience” (Beaulieu, 2018, citing, p. 64; Marton, 1986, p. 34). The approach taken may even be considered a form of “developmental phenomenography” in that the outcomes of the research are intended to support the participants to improve their own practice through reflection (Bowden & Walsh, 2000). In this case, BEL+T’s involvement in the production of VSVs had included: consulting on the approach; advising on interpretation of generic guidance developed by BEL+T; co-design of tailored VSV solutions; and supporting production of content. In September 2021, BEL+T compiled a list of faculty subject coordinators who had discussed development of VSVs since 2019. A Plain Language Statement and Consent form were provided to invited participants, in alignment with the human research ethics approval obtained from the Research Ethics Committee of the institution. Five (5) staff participants accepted the interview invitation, augmenting findings from related focus groups that included an additional seven (7) staff participants, previously reported (Thompson et al., 2021).

Participants in the interviews and previous focus groups represented a broad range of built environments disciplines, year levels, and subject types. Subjects led by staff participants ranged in size from around 30 to 300 students, with teaching delivered by a single individual or a larger teaching team accordingly. After undertaking a preliminary review of recent literature, interviews with each teacher or teaching team explored the approach taken to designing the VSV and reflected on its effectiveness within the subject’s overall learning design. The research group reviewed each subject handbook entry, the LMS site and VSV overview in preparation for the interview. Conversations were 30 minutes each and semi-structured. They commenced with a review of learning aims for the subject and proceeded to explore the use of VSVs through the lenses of various elements of the DIA learning design framework. Participants were also invited to discuss their plans for further development of site visits within their subject. An outline of the semi-structured interview questions is provided in the Appendix.

Interviews were undertaken online via Zoom and were recorded and transcribed verbatim. In this instance, in adhering to a phenomenographic approach, the interviews yielded descriptions of teaching approaches specifically in relation to site visits. These descriptions were then classified through independent review by members of BEL+T to analyze responses to specific questions and areas of discussion and to identify emergent themes. This process was subsequently confirmed by consensus and yielded the set of VSV approaches classified according to learning aims as presented in the proposed typology of site visits (see Table 2).

Table 2. BEL+T virtual site visit (VSV) typology

	VSV TYPES		REFERENCE EXAMPLE
	STUDENTACTIVITY	LEARNING PURPOSE	CONTEXT/DESCRIPTION	TECHNOLOGY/PRODUCTION
Field of objects *(8/42)	Students are supported to recognize items or examples in situ	Remember (recognize); Understand (classify, exemplify, explain)	Undergraduate subject, first introduction to environmental control and building infrastructure systems VSV spatializes systems and components, and reduces impact of sound, vibrations, scale, smell, etc.	(2 versions) 360° photos, 3DVista 3D “gamespace” model produced in Unity3D
Theatre set *(1/42)	Students are introduced to people, roles and elements within a scene	Remember (recognize); Understand (exemplify, infer, compare, explain)	Undergraduate subject, introduction to construction roles and professional concerns VSV demonstrates the roles and impact that professionals have through a site example	3DVista tour incorporating video interviews of professionals, images, animations
Demonstration *(2/42)	Students observe phases of activity on a site; students can link these to references or guidance	Remember (recognize, recall); Understand (interpret, exemplify, classify, compare, explain)	Undergraduate subject, first introduction to construction phases and processes VSV is a series of recordings of site processes and linked documentation, offering an observation	Timelapse video(s) with narrative
Situation *(4/42)	Students explore multiple locations; resources contextualize a focus or theme	Analyse (Differentiate, Attribute); Evaluate (Critique)	Postgraduate subject VSV as a case study to consider abstract elements of theory/policy through the specifics of a concrete example	Layered modes with map overview: GoPro video, photographs, audio narration, text
Starting point *(21/42)	Students explore the specifics of a selected site, or of a site type	Understand (classify, interpret); Analyse (differentiate); Evaluate (critique); Create (generate, plan, produce)	Undergraduate and Postgraduate design studio subjects VSV as a specific location that can be explored to investigate scale and materiality, and aspects of a specific site as context or VSV as a specific type that can be explored to investigate precedent	360° photos across design project site Livestreamed “carry along” for remote student access by local students

*Note : review of 42 VSVs subsequent to the development of the Typology found them to be distributed as outlined. One additional type, developed since the interviews with participants, was also identified for 6/42 tours.

As stated above, the typology also drew on published findings from previous focus group discussions with seven (7) studio coordinators who had engaged in related 2021 research targeting innovative methods for online/blended learning (including the use of VSVs). Outcomes of that study focused on studio teaching and have been published (Thompson et al., 2021). These findings, and further review of published literature by others, provided valuable context and informed thematic analysis of the interview data and development of the typology as reported below. Growing numbers of coordinators with VSVs that were still in development in late 2021, and yet to be incorporated into curricula, were not included in interviews for this study. The research group have subsequently reviewed a total of 42 VSVs to test the proposed typology across a larger set of examples. This total of 42 VSVs were produced for use in 26 subjects, in collaboration with 26 separate subject coordinators. These 26 subjects are offered in Construction, Urban Planning, Architecture, Landscape Architecture and Property disciplines and include both undergraduate and masters level subjects for every discipline (excepting Property, with VSVs in subjects only offered at Masters level at this stage). This is discussed in more detail below.

Findings and discussion

Analysis of interview transcripts by the research group noted themes related to teaching activity or learning design; learning aims as described by interviewees; and also identified emergent concepts. Findings in relation to DIA elements – delivery, interaction, assessment and coordination – are outlined in the next section. Findings related to the learning aim that were supported by VSV examples were considered in relation to cognitive dimensions of Bloom’s (revised) Taxonomy (Krathwohl, 2002). These are reported in Table 2, alongside findings from the subsequent review of additional VSV examples. Presentation of emergent themes arising from the data that were identified by researchers concludes this section.

VSV as delivery

Participants in the study outlined a number of ambitions for each VSV in terms of its role as a learning object to be delivered to students. Many of these related to the broad opportunity for students to engage with places that they would be otherwise unable to visit due to Covid restrictions, such as local lockdowns or closed borders. As such, the site visit changed from a physical environment in which learning would take place to a learning artifact offering a rich experience. One participant described several aspects of this change to the nature and artifacts for learning in terms of relevance, focus, and volume of content delivered:

It was really about a more engaging way of delivering the content and … you know, students eventually will work [professionally] on site. (Participant 3)

[…] I used to bring in guests […]a construction manager, project manager, et cetera. And so we converted those lectures into an interview [embedded in the virtual site visit] […] It’s a bit more focused […] [Early year students] want to know what an architect does day-to-day […] We have a panel [with the same professionals as in the VSV] where students can ask questions based on what they’ve heard in the recordings. (Participant 3)

I guess it’s just a different way of [students] engaging with the learning content. […] I think there’s probably more content in there now than there was in the past. So it’s allowed us to embed more in there because we’re able to capture more of their time […] We’re almost forcing [students] to look at more content or the content they should’ve been looking in the past […] and I think it’s just better than them coming to a lecture theater or looking at a recording of me going through some slides. (Participant 3)

Interaction and the VSV

With few exceptions, VSVs reviewed by the researchers were developed for individual students to access, with limited opportunities for student-to-student interaction to date. Some academics expressed interest in developing opportunities for students to share virtual experiences in the future:

I’m sure there was some [students] that sat with each other and went through it together. But yeah, I mean, it’d be great if it was gamified a bit more and they could actually see each other virtually walking around those sites. (Participant 3)

Current exceptions to the “individual VSV” were of a slightly different design – when access to a physical site was available, some design studio coordinators paired students who could access a local site with offshore students who explored examples of the same site typology in their own context. In this way, students were able to collaborate on site research activities. Students used live access via video phones to offer a “personal tour” to remote group members. To augment this work and to distribute learning tasks across all group members, students also accessed recorded online walk-through tours by others, and collected data and references that could provide “starting points” for their project work (Thompson et al., 2021).

Some examples of other learning activities that support student–staff interaction in combination with VSVs are of note. These include live (in-person/online) discussions with a panel of professionals who had appeared in interviews and animations embedded in a VSV for the same student group as outlined in the section above. This offers a response to some of the impediments to staff–student interaction that arose through the shift from physical to VSVs and noted by other teachers:

Basically I turned the casual site visit discussion into an intentional discussion point at each of the “stops” on the way. So [students] lost the opportunity to ask that consultant questions … (Participant 1)

Other shared online platforms such as Mozilla Hubs and at.studio supported the creation of online virtual models that allowed multiple participants, including both staff and students. These technologies may be extended to allow shared interactive VSVs in the near future.

VSV experiences and assessment

The third “teaching practice” element outlined in the DIA framework is Assessment, and surveyed VSVs demonstrated a range of approaches to this aspect.

In one case, the VSV offered a consistent set of experiences that could be curated and even composed by teaching staff (see “theatre set” in Table 2). The broader subject design used these to introduce, and contrast, physical site visits (PSVs) in which students tracked construction progress on weekly visits as an assessment activity. In this case, the VSV introduced key roles, practitioners, materials, and other site concerns to contextualize students’ observations in the later PSVs, and to provide a shared and consistent reference point: “Because those sites vary, everyone’s got a different site, (and) different progression and building type … ”

In another subject, teachers used the content of a VSV (a “demonstration of process”) as a basis for assessment quizzes that prepared students for an exam. This included asking students to identify a particular material or change to a site under construction and to identify the processes that would commonly precede or follow it. The participant described how a video-based approach assisted students to develop a deeper understanding of identified stages of construction and to respond to the assessment from a more informed perspective:

The idea is that it’s just like being there for a couple of minutes while [the process] happens. So instead of having one image that freezes just one moment, they can have a better understanding of what happens beforehand and soon after. So, for example, if they have a timber frame, they might need to have some connection to the ground … and also with the roof. So they can see just by looking at the video … that the “stages” are just the simplification of the process, which is something that we try to say over and over. (Participant 4)

In a third example relating the VSV and assessment practices, a “VSV as a situation” offered a case study for students to apply skills and knowledge developed through earlier learning activities:

So, in the first assignments, I’ve typically got [students] to critically analyze literature on those key terms or only one aspect. And then the second assignment … usually focuses on something like, “How do we measure this or assess this [aspect]?” And often they have to develop their own matrix or critique. Then the third assignment applies that [matrix or critique] in this case study situation. (Participant 1)

Coordination for VSV engagement and scaffolding of learning

Framing, preparation, and clear guidance remain important aspects of good teaching practice. Within the DIAgram these are represented as the coordination element that crucially integrates delivery, interaction, and assessment. Other research conducted by BEL+T has identified tactics for coordination of student learning experiences that are relevant to the framing of VSVs within a learning context – to prepare students to use these tools effectively. Identified tactics included the communication of a logical, predictable, and reasonable structure; and organized logistical planning to assist a “smooth” learning experience (Tregloan & Thompson, 2021).

The interviews explored the role of coordination through the question “How are students prepared to engage with the VSV in your subject?.” One participant who teaches early-year students highlighted both technical and conceptual aspects:

The week before I’ll say, “Look, we’ve got this resource, there’s no lecture next week.” First of all, they’re happy. Then they realize they’ve got to do this online module … there’s a whole lot of little technical things that I let them know about … So I say, ‘Make sure your battery is charged up, you’re plugged in, you’ve got [access to enough] data.’ And then I say, ” … Have the quiz done by this time because there’s questions.” I ask them to put questions in the quiz that I can then use to inform questions I might ask the [live expert] panel the following week. (Participant 3)

As reported below, some interviewees focused on the contribution of VSVs toward scaffolding of student learning across a subject as a whole, offering a coordination function. Scaffolding a learner’s development provides the support necessary for the learner to bridge a “zone of proximal development” (Vygotsky, 1978) and to engage in activities just beyond their capabilities (e.g., confident and safe independent exploration of a physical site). Chernikova et al. (2020) suggest hints or “prompts” (e.g., within VSVs) may act as scaffolds by providing additional information about how to engage with an identified task. In the example above, researchers found that the VSV contributed to coordination of the subject learning design, and scaffolding of student learning, by offering an introduction to “real life speakers” who would later join the live class for a public talk. Students were invited to suggest questions in advance to be asked by the teacher, thus building confidence with the overall subject matter as well as engagement in a professional setting.

The design of VSVs may therefore consider the degree and type of scaffolding suitable for varying capabilities among learners and may be used as a tool to coordinate or co-locate references and/or resources for study. A VSV developed by a participant for a more senior student cohort provides an example:

… there’s a river or a creek that runs through [the site] and it’s got particular physical characteristics that make flooding a real issue around there. So [the learning opportunity] was also looking at how the government was intending to respond to that flooding. … So there were different bits of policy that were also embedded [in the VSV resource] … and different parts of planning schemes were linked (Participant 2)

A typology of observed VSVs through the lens of learning outcomes

While the DIA framework offered a useful lens to explore the role of VSVs in the learning design of a subject, interview data also suggested to researchers that a VSV might incorporate aspects of delivery, interaction, and assessment depending on its particular design and manifestation. In parallel, exploring VSVs through a learning outcome lens offered an understanding of the stated ambitions for the learning design itself.

Review of interview data and site content and design by the research group revealed diverse approaches to VSVs, each supporting a number of teaching and learning purposes. Each of these types is described by analogy to other places or scenarios in which learning may take place, supported by subject design. These are spatialized, drawing from learning approaches in built environment disciplines including construction management, architecture, landscape architecture, urban planning and urban design.

It is notable that each of these examples aimed for students to translate their learning from these “virtual” sites to an anticipated “physical” site experience in the future – in Klippel et al. (2019) terms, the VSVs were “basic” or “plus.” Identified “VSV types” observed through the study are as listed below:

• As a searchable “field of objects” in which the VSV focuses on assisting students’ recognition of specific objects or elements within a context;

• As a “theater set” in which the VSV introduces students to site scenes, and the roles performed or context explained by “actors;”

• As a “demonstration of process” offering students an opportunity to observe processes and activities taking place on a site through recordings;

• As a “situation” demonstrating the application of abstract concepts or standards as they are situated in a specific place, allowing students to observe, analyze, and critique these outcomes;

• As a “starting point” for students to explore, respond to, and draw upon for the development of creative designs or propositions for that or another site.

For the purposes of demonstration, Table 2 sets out characteristics of these listed VSV types, also noting student activity and learning purpose drawing on the learning hierarchy described in the cognitive dimension of Bloom’s (revised) Taxonomy (Krathwohl, 2002) for each. This includes learning activities focused on recognition and remembering, as well as more complex activities that draw on initial knowledge to evaluate and then to create complex new proposals. It is of note that in many professional education programs, including design education, first-year undergraduate students regularly engage with “creative” activities, not only those of remembering or identification, even if later-year graduate-level design study would normally include self-directed projects that are more complex and demanding. Reference examples describe roles for staff and students, and format and technologies for VSV production.

While it is beyond the scope of this paper to cover technical production in detail, it is important to note that the VSV examples explored through this study included a range of approaches, and further work is yielding still more options for production, even while this learning design focused typology continues to hold. The reference examples above describe the contexts for sample VSVs and some of the range of technical approaches taken. Indeed, the number of examples indicated in the table is only a small sample of the formats that are currently in use and that continue to expand. Examples offer the viewer a perspective at eye height, or in plan view as an abstracted coordination framework. Earlier related work by one author has included navigable tours of supported housing environments for people with disability represented at the eye height of the resident in their wheelchair or mobility device (Tregloan et al., 2014). Selection of an approach needs to consider resourcing and production limitations (including funding, equipment, support, and skill), as well as access to site, and the intentions for student learning.

Subsequent to the analysis of the interview data, and the development of the Typology outlined in Table 2, members of the research team reviewed a larger set of examples to test the identified types. This included review of 42 tours in total, and found them to be distributed as indicated in the table. It is of note that the majority of VSVs (50%) were identified as “Starting Point” types. This high proportion is hypothesized as resulting from the familiarity of subject coordinators with this application, caused by offshore and off campus learning needs due to COVID-19 restrictions. It is also true that these typically require less investment of time and resources for production than other types (e.g., “Theatre set;” “Demonstration” with higher resourcing needs). In addition, 6/42 VSVs developed since the initial study and interviews were found to support a different learning approach, as a “Showcase of Student Work.” This newly emerging approach will be further explored in forthcoming research.

The VSV types identified in this paper are described independently, alongside specific examples; however, it is important to note that in practice they may not be mutually exclusive and may act at a range of scales. It is clear that a single designed VSV may offer students the opportunity to recognize a range of objects and artifacts, as well as the impact of abstract rules or legislation on a given situation, and that this situation may in turn offer a starting point for students to develop proposals for further development. Depending on the study program, such an approach may be very valuable for student learning at the scale of a room, a building, a neighborhood, a landscape, or a city. Further, these approaches to the design and use of VSVs may be relevant to academic colleagues from different disciplines, or a single VSV may offer a site for interdisciplinary collaboration. Examples of more complex VSVs with separate but interconnected sections each aligning with different type definitions have been identified by the research team. These examples are using different sections of a complex learning artifact (VSV) for different learning purposes.

Emergent findings

In addition to a deeper understanding of the teaching and learning purposes of VSVs through the lens of teaching practices represented in the DIA framework and the roles these may play within an overall learning design, interview data also provided valuable perspectives on topics related to the preparation and design of subjects or learning programs. These themes, described and discussed below, emerged through the constructivist grounded research approach that included analyzing interview data in the context of the complete discussion as well as previously published literature.

Pragmatic perspectives

Participants described some of the pragmatic advantages of VSVs and offered specific examples. These included opportunities to provide site access to large numbers of students, to manage access or safety concerns, and to offer extended engagement over time. Such issues would impede access to physical sites for these subjects and for particular students, and so VSVs offer an opportunity that would otherwise be lost. As one participant described the situation of their particular building site:

When you enter the mixing chamber, you’ve got these big ducts … blowing straight into your face. It’s a place that was not really nice to be in but now [after Covid restrictions] it will be a big no-no. … Many times we [considered other buildings] … but [getting access] is far too complex, and you have to go up and down and on the roof [there is] absolutely no possibility to have a group of students, you know, 250 students doing this. But “in virtual” that would be possible. (Participant 5)

Participants also highlighted equity concerns for students with physical accessibility needs and for those studying online as a result of Covid-related or other restrictions, as well as the opportunity to offer all students access to an “equivalent” learning experience:

Well, in terms of equity and access, I think going virtual has shown us how much more accessible things can be […] There’s always someone that can’t make it on the day or has a really legitimate reason. (Participant 2)

Nevertheless, making a change from a “live” PSV to preparing an asynchronous VSV requires commitment on the part of teaching staff. It changes the nature of engagement with the site, particularly those with embedded expert commentary, as described by one participant:

So I’d have [an expert consultant] walking with us, and we’d just stop and meander and chat about things as we came across them. We had an intention, the route that we’d like to follow on foot, to show maximum areas of interest … [For a VSV] it had to become a bit more structured and committed. (Participant 1)

On the other side of the physical/virtual divide, participants described some of the experiences that students were able to gain from PSVs, highlighting some limitations and challenges of current forms of VSVs:

The sound is a big, big difference. Like between a fan, a boiler, a pump, the spray of the cooling towers, all of these are not common sounds … Of course [in a PSV] the rule is “you don’t touch anything,” but just to have a sense of how much speed, volume and strength and vibrations are in those spaces … the experience is different than a virtual one. … because the physical, it works very much as a shock. You know, it’s memorable, when [students] go there. (Participant 5)

[During weekly visits to physical sites] in many cases, [students] actually form a relationship with the site team and they get some time on site as well, which is good for them in terms of networking. (Participant 3)

The benefits of pairing PSVs and VSVs in the learning program for a subject was also described:

Most [students] have never been on a site before. [They are] really scared and don’t know how to approach it. Part of the goal was giving them some exposure to what a site looks like and the different parts of a project and things like that. So they’re learning about the site from us [through the VSV] at the same time as they’re learning from their own experience [through independent group PSV]. (Participant 3)

Student agency

Ultimately, the design of an authentic learning experience within a VSV must also engage with notions of student agency within that environment. Notions of scaffolding and framing of VSV experiences outlined above dovetail with this concept. As is the case in the shift to virtual learning environments more broadly, the move to asynchronous and/or remote modes of education compels learning designers and educators to adopt a more deliberative and planned approach to crafting such experiences, but also to recognize that students who are in an online environment are necessarily acting more independently of the teacher and the institution.

As other published examples demonstrate, VSVs are often presented in a narrative structure, with “users” (i.e., students) offered site-related content in a linear, predicted, and spatialized sequence. By contrast, van der Meer (2019) describes educational “adventures” around a “branching network of possible choices,” offering six types of narrative structures for designing such experiences. As Eng (2020) argues, agency is about the “sense of control” that users feel, including the degree to which they are able to make “meaningful decisions.”

From an authentic learning design standpoint, the concept of a narrative raises questions of agency and control. Is there one single narrative, or multiple potential narratives? Who is the narrator, and how many narrators/narratives can or ought to co-exist? What is the role of the “experienced professional” who traverses these spaces, and what might students learn by watching their approach? In terms of VSVs this contrast was explored by one participant in the discussion of a shift from PSVs, and a perceived call for more intentionality in the preparation of the experience for students:

[For PSV’s in the past] … we had an intention for the route that we’d like to follow on foot to show maximum areas of interest in two hours or whatever … so it’s kind of chatting and mulling and posing questions as we go. But so that had to change then with COVID … it had to become a bit more structured and committed. Yeah, so that’s when I decided which points to get [students] to focus on. (Participant 1)

Scholarly writing on gaming environments, whether in education contexts or otherwise, considers agency as a way of approaching various design considerations. Zarzycki (2016, p. 209) posits that “narratives in contemporary video games provide a natural transition framework into virtual worlds through emotional engagement and personal identification.” In a thought-provoking critique, Stang (2019) argues that the notion of agency within a gaming environment is an illusion, with players merely believing that “the narrative is responding to his or her actions.” According to Stang, true agency can be exercised through a player’s interpretation of the game, through conversations between players outside of the game engine itself or through a feedback loop of players offering constructive criticism to game designers to improve the product. When translated to educational contexts, this perspective suggests deeper potential for student agency beyond the VSV, and is certainly evident through students’ use of VSVs as part of collaborative project work or learning conversations. Feedback via student surveys or similar mechanisms offer excellent ways to better understand student experiences and to inform further development of these important tools. The emergent “Showcase of Student Work” approach offers a different perspective on student agency, in which students may start to coauthor these experiences as part of their learning. This will be explored in future research.

Conclusion

The linking of learning and virtual place offers an opportunity for students to expand their understanding of concept and theory as it is translated “on the ground,” to access and explore locations or perspectives that would not otherwise be available and to test the application of the knowledge and skills they are developing in a comparatively safe context. In learning environments that may be distributed over space and time, VSVs offer valuable tools to contemporary educators. Indeed, as of early 2023, a total of 42 VSVs have been created and integrated in subjects across the built environment disciplines of our faculty.

This paper has presented the use of site visits for built environments learning and has explored the challenges presented by a sudden move online and the restrictions of PSVs introduced by extended lockdowns. A series of responses to these has been presented, demonstrating ways in which VSVs may contribute to the learning design and learning aims for students in a subject. The paper has identified a typology of VSVs, providing examples that relate these types to the learning objectives identified for each. This typology presents an opportunity for educators, and for academic development groups that support learning design in construction and built environment disciplines, to contextualize their aims for a planned VSV from a learning-focussed perspective and to make more informed decisions about the options available. Further to this, this paper has outlined some key and shared concerns that are relevant to the design of VSVs across many areas: considering the benefits or combination of VSVs and PSVs for learning; scaffolding and framing of VSV experiences for learning; and developing approaches that consider student agency.

Looking ahead, as there is increased focus on the (previously taken-for-granted) qualities of on-campus environments and PSVs for learning, and as access to these returns, we are also presented with the opportunity to extend on the lessons of lockdowns. BEL+T continues to support the development of new VSVs, and we observe that “immersive” and “augmented” approaches are delivering a further blurring of the physical and virtual in these important learning environments. New and more complex “combined” types of VSVs are emerging and offer scope for further research, as does the investigation of different approaches to the design of VSVs to address these learning purposes. As VSVs are designed and introduced, a continued focus on specific learning aims alongside technical developments is crucial to ensure that students, wherever they are physically located, can benefit from learning on (and in) virtual site.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge the ABP staff who contributed to the development of virtual site visits, and the Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning for its continued support of research into best practice teaching and learning for built environments disciplines.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Appendix

Semi-structured staff interview outline

Interview (30 min)

Structure and introduction − 5 min

 

• • Introduction

• • Commence recording

• • Confirm consent form return and agreement

Questions

Context – 5 min

• • Confirm subject

• • Subject ILOs point toward a focus on XXX (identified in advance via handbook entries, and LMS presence) … Is this still a good description of the learning aims?

• • VSV Role in your subject – 15 min

• • How are students prepared to engage with the VSV in your subject?

• • Students are exposed to content/knowledge through the VSV … what do you want the VSV to deliver for students and their learning?

• • How are the interactions/conversations between students, or between staff and students impacted by the VSV?

• • Is there related assessment activity as part of the subject design? What is this? How direct are the links to the VSV? (ie does it draw on the ‘experience’ or is it specifically embedded)

Review – 5 mins

• • Do you think the VSV is successful for this subject? Why/not?

• • How would you like to develop this current VSV approach or improve it?