Context: Software development is a complex socio-technical process requiring a deep understanding of various aspects. In order to support practitioners in understanding such a complex activity, repository process metrics, like number of pull requests and issues, emerged as crucial for evaluating CI/CD workflows and guiding informed decision-making. The research community proposed different ways to visualize these metrics to increase their impact on developers' process comprehension: VR is a promising one. Nevertheless, despite such promising results, the role of VR, especially in educational settings, has received limited research attention. Objective: This study aims to address this gap by exploring how VR-based repository metrics visualization can support the teaching of process comprehension. Method: The registered report proposes the execution of a controlled experiment where VR and non-VR approaches will be compared, with the final aim to assess whether repository metrics in VR's impact on learning experience and software process comprehension. By immersing students in an intuitive environment, this research hypothesizes that VR can foster essential analytical skills, thus preparing software engineering students more effectively for industry requirements and equipping them to navigate complex software development tasks with enhanced comprehension and critical thinking abilities.

翻译：背景：软件开发是一项复杂的社会技术过程，需要深入理解多个方面。为支持从业者理解此类复杂活动，仓库过程指标（如拉取请求数量和议题数量）已成为评估CI/CD工作流和指导知情决策的关键要素。研究界提出了多种可视化这些指标的方法以增强其对开发者过程理解的影响：虚拟现实（VR）是一种前景广阔的技术。然而，尽管成果令人鼓舞，VR的作用——尤其是在教育环境中——获得的研究关注仍较为有限。目的：本研究旨在通过探索基于VR的仓库指标可视化如何支持过程理解教学来填补这一空白。方法：本注册报告提出执行一项对照实验，比较VR与非VR方法，最终评估VR中的仓库指标对学习体验和软件过程理解的影响。通过将学生沉浸于直观环境中，本研究假设VR能够培养关键的分析技能，从而更有效地为软件工程学生适应行业需求做好准备，并使其以增强的理解力和批判性思维能力应对复杂的软件开发任务。