Developing avatars to improve cultural competence in US soldiers

Moenning, Anne; Turnbull, Benton; Abel, Daniel; Meyer, Christine Benedichte; Hale, Merritt; Guerlain, Stephanie; Brown, Donald E.

doi:10.1109/sieds.2016.7489288

Cited by 10 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 2 publications

(3 reference statements)

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“…Menu-based option selection systems map each predefined trainee's response to a corresponding performance measure and feedback [13], [32], [33]. These systems evaluate trainees' input using supervised machine learning classification algorithm that learns from training examples annotated by subject matter experts [1], [2], [4].…”

Section: Response Evaluation and Feedback Mechanismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dialogue-Based Simulation For Cultural Awareness Training

Adewole,

Gharavi,

Shpringer

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Existing simulations designed for cultural and interpersonal skill training rely on pre-defined responses with a menu option selection interface. Using a multiple-choice interface and restricting trainees' responses may limit the trainees' ability to apply the lessons in real life situations. These systems, also rely on a simplistic evaluation model, where trainees' selected options are marked as either correct or incorrect. The model cannot capture sufficient information that could drive an adaptive feedback mechanism to improve trainees' cultural awareness. This paper describes the design of a dialogue-based simulation for cultural awareness training. The simulation, built around a disaster management scenario involving a joint coalition between the US and the Chinese armies. Trainees were able to engage in realistic dialogue with the Chinese agent. Their responses, at different points, get evaluated by different multi-label classification models. Based on training on our dataset, the models score the trainees' responses for their awareness of the Chinese culture. Trainees also get feedback that informs the cultural appropriateness of their responses. The result of this work showed the following; i) A feature-based evaluation model improves the design, modeling and computation of dialogue-based training simulation systems; ii) Output from current automatic speech recognition (ASR) systems gave comparable end results compared with the output from manual transcription; iii) A multi-label classification model trained as a cultural expert gave results which were comparable with scores assigned by human annotators.

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Section: Response Evaluation and Feedback Mechanismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dialogue-Based Simulation For Cultural Awareness Training

Adewole,

Gharavi,

Shpringer

et al. 2020

Preprint

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“…For instance, the Cul-tureShock Afghanistan game was designed to improve intercultural competences by placing players in the role of an Afghan village elder. The Cultural Awareness in Military Operations (CAMO) application has military personnel in training act out a scenario together (multiplayer), but the experience of immersion is aided through means of a virtual environment of an Afghan village created in Second Life (Prasolova-Førland, Fominykh, Darisiro, & Mørch, 2013, see also Moenning et al 2016).…”

Section: Serious Games In Cppb Trainingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Managing Expectations? The Opportunities and Limitations of e-Learning Applications in Conflict Prevention and Peacebuilding Training

Demarest

Smith

2019

Journal of Peacebuilding & Development

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In recent decades, governmental and non-governmental organisations have increased the number and scale of Conflict Prevention and Peacebuilding (CPPB) activities in conflict-affected countries. This development has also led to an increase in personnel in these organisations, posing challenges for staff training. In response, many organisations are looking at e-learning applications to provide cost-effective training at a broad geographical scale. Online courses and “serious games” have in particular received interest in recent years. In this article, we discuss the opportunities and limitations of such applications for CPPB training. We argue that they face challenges in contributing to skills and knowledge development but emphasise nevertheless that these challenges are similar to those faced by current classroom training initiatives. The potential of technology should not be exaggerated, yet digital applications can broaden the scope of participation and professionalization in CPPB activities to a wider range of (non-Western) actors.

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“…28 The computer game for cultural training described in this paper is built from earlier work to design a cultural simulation for military personnel. 29 That work provided a good foundation for the game design for this problem area but did not implement or test the design.…”

Section: Cross-cultural Trainingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The choice of simulation scenarios. Additional details on the design decisions for the game are given in Moenning et al 29…”

Section: Avatar-based Game Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

Design and evaluation of an avatar-based cultural training system

Brown

Moenning

Guerlain

et al. 2018

Journal of Defense Modeling & Simulation

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The need for cultural training for members of the military, and supporting government and industrial organizations, has become more important because of the increasing expectations of effective collaborations between people of different cultures in order to achieve common security objectives. Additionally, the number and mix of countries, and cultural groups within those countries, make traditional classroom training less feasible. While good simulations have been built for cultural understanding, they have not been developed widely or used for pre-deployment training. This paper describes and evaluates an avatar-based game for pre-deployment training. The game is built around two scenarios from the Afghan culture: a market scenario, and a local leadership council scenario. The game also allows participants to reverse roles and play the part of an Afghan interacting with an American solider. To evaluate this avatar-based game, we developed an experimental design to test the effectiveness of the game versus commonly used video instruction, and to test the effectiveness of role reversals in training with games. Results show that participants trained with the avatarbased game had significantly improved understanding of Afghan culture (p < 0:01). However, role reversal did not improve performance. Additionally, responses to a questionnaire showed that participants in the avatar-based game had a much greater appreciation for their understanding of the Afghan culture than the more video-trained control group.

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Developing avatars to improve cultural competence in US soldiers

Cited by 10 publications

References 2 publications

Dialogue-Based Simulation For Cultural Awareness Training

Dialogue-Based Simulation For Cultural Awareness Training

Managing Expectations? The Opportunities and Limitations of e-Learning Applications in Conflict Prevention and Peacebuilding Training

Design and evaluation of an avatar-based cultural training system

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