Abstract
Justice-involved individuals—those serving custodial or community-based sentences—face entrenched barriers to employment, particularly within correctional settings, where traditional training methods often fail. In Aotearoa New Zealand, these challenges are compounded for Māori, who are overrepresented in the prison population. This paper applies a Proof-of-Value (PoV) framework to evaluate an immersive Virtual Reality (VR) training intervention designed for use in high-security environments. Co-developed by the Ministry of Social Development (MSD), the Department of Corrections (Ara Poutama Aotearoa), and SkillsVR, the initiative comprises short, culturally relevant modules on topics such as workplace safety and conflict management. Piloted in New Zealand prisons, the intervention demonstrated measurable improvements in learner engagement, emotional connection, and post-training confidence. This study traces the pilot-to-practice journey and identifies key success conditions for institutionalizing immersive learning in public sector contexts. The findings offer practical and theoretical contributions to the IS literature on value realization, digital inclusion, and government innovation.
Recommended Citation
Mohammadhossein, Nastaran, "Empowering Workforce Development Through Immersive
Learning: A Proof-of-Value Case Study of
Government–Industry Collaboration in New Zealand" (2025). ACIS 2025 Proceedings. 40.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/acis2025/40