Towards Co-Creation of Learning Material in Vocational Training

The complexity of production processes increased during the last years, especially due to digitalization, which results in an increasing need of in-company trainings. Hence, companies use trainings to impart action-oriented knowledge in the work process. However, these trainings are often supported by learning materials that do not reflect the current work situation of the employees because they are either outdated or too general. We are addressing this problem using a co-creation process by enabling em-
ployees to generate the materials independently during the work process. Within the framework of a theory-driven design science research approach, we derived requirements from theory as well as from a focus group workshop and a work process analysis to develop design elements for this process. We pay particular attention to the cognitive load (CL) of the employees. The theoretical contribution of our research is twofold: On the one hand, we give insights regarding the effects of the physical environment on CL. On the other hand, we give insights about how to design systems that can avoid CL within knowledge generation processes. In this way, we help practitioners to design systems that consider the CL of employees.