New professor for business education and digital vocational learning

Prof. Dr Viola Deutscher holds the Chair of Business Education and Digital Vocational Learning at the Faculty of Business and Economics at the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen since 1 March 2024.

In her research, she focuses in particular on digital learning in vocational education (especially the development of learning simulations and virtual reality scenarios), training quality and dropout, as well as competence diagnostics (currently as part of the OECD initiative for a VET-PISA) and finally university didactics and teacher training.

Her predominantly externally funded research (DFG, BMBF, "Stiftung für Innovation in der Hochschullehre") has been published in high-ranking scientific journals such as 'Learning and Instruction', 'Educational Research Review' or 'Higher Education' and she is a reviewer for numerous journals and research institutions (e.g. 'Vocations and Learning', German Research Foundation). She is Chair of the American Educational Research Association for the Special Interest Group 'Workplace Learning' and OECD expert in the preparation of the international performance study for vocational education from 2028 for the areas 'Business Administration' and 'Background Questionnaires'.

In teaching, she currently offers courses on learning and performance diagnostics, VR learning and research methods and is working on innovative module concepts (VR and volumetric videos in teacher training) as part of externally funded teaching projects.

Before moving to Göttingen, Prof Deutscher held the Chair of Business Education, Skills Development and Training Quality (W3 professorship) at the Faculty of Business Administration at the University of Mannheim. She studied Economics at the University of Frankfurt (Bachelor) and Business Education at the University of Paderborn (Master) and completed her doctorate at the University of Paderborn including a research stay at the Learning Sciences Research Institute in Chicago. She then worked as a research assistant at the German Institute for Adult Education ("Deutsches Institut für Erwachsenenbildung") and was a junior professor of business education at the University of Mannheim from 2016-2019.