Teaching Styles of Virtual Training Systems for Industrial Applications – A Review of the Literature

The demand for individualized and efficient production yields more capable but also more complex manufacturing environments. Virtual training systems were proposed to train the operators who control and maintain industrial machines. This article reviews such training systems with a focus on their teaching styles and identifies new research directions in the field of adaptive training systems. The review applies a classification scheme that describes the instructions, the presentation of the instructions, and the interaction possibilities of a virtual training system. Another aspect of the classification scheme are the capabilities to adapt a training system to the characteristics of the trainee. The review indicates that existing training systems apply similar teaching styles and provide limited adaptive capabilities. The development of training systems that adapt their teaching style to the disposition and the qualification of individual trainees is proposed, to address the increasingly diverse workforce.