Immersive educational environment as a structural-functional pedagogical system for enhancing the quality of training of navigation cadets

The research objective is to substantiate the structural‑functional model of an immersive educational environment as an open, logically structured pedagogical system that ensures the improvement of the quality of training for ship navigation cadets through the systemic integration of goals, content, digital tools, teaching methods, and pedagogical conditions. The article presents the pedagogical content of the immersive educational environment, its functions and properties as an open system of professional training, as well as the mechanisms of systemic integration of components, modeling of professional activity, activity‑based competence formation, communicative involvement, and the development of professionally significant qualities of cadets. The scientific novelty of the study lies in the fact that, for the first time, the immersive educational environment is presented as a holistic pedagogical system, possessing a set of interrelated functions (systematizing, designing, constructive, communicative, and socio‑pedagogical) and specific properties (immersiveness, interactivity, individualization, observability, plasticity, constructability, and redundancy). The results of the study showed that the effectiveness of the immersive educational environment is determined by the coherence of its structure, the realism of the simulated situations, and compliance with international standards of navigator training (Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers and Federal State Educational Standards of Higher Education). The pilot implementation of the model confirmed that its use ensures manageability of training quality, reproducibility and objectivity of assessment, the development of key competencies, and the approximation of the educational process to real maritime practice.