Scenarios in virtual learning environments for one-to-one communication skills training

Abstract

A scenario is a description of a series of interactions between a player and a virtual character for one-to-one communication skills training, where at each step the player is faced with a choice between statements. In this paper, we analyse the characteristics of scenarios and provide a classification to represent such scenarios. The analysis is performed through a literature review and by comparing virtual learning environments for scenario based training. Using this analysis we specify requirements for describing communication scenarios related to their: structure (linear, branching, interleaving), properties (static information stored per scenario like situation, background, which virtual character to show), and parameters (characteristics of a scenario that can be modified per statement like a score on a learning goal and an emotional effect in a virtual character). We define a schema for representing such communication scenarios and present an authoring tool to create a scenario.

Educational Intervention Improves Communication Abilities of Nurses Encountering Workplace Incivility

“…Branching scenarios are an efficient and interactive way to present case study information (Lala, Jeuring, van Dortmont, & van Geest, 2017). The branching scenarios begin as case studies.…”

“…However, the scenarios allowed participants to choose how they would respond to given situations through the use of avatars or graphic illustrations that represented the participant and other characters in the case study (Kunc & O'Brien, 2017;Lala et al, 2017). The scenarios provided participants the ability to explore real-world options in a safe, simulated environment and required participants to actively think through the steps of their decision-making process (Lala et al, 2017). These scenarios accounted for subjective judgments or expectations about the random future of the scenario and allowed participants to use what they learned to better prepare for future complex, real-time interactions.…”

Scenarios in a serious game for training communication skills

“…The paper 'Scenarios in virtual learning environments for one-to-one communication skills training' [55], Raja Lala, Johan Jeuring, Jordy van Dortmont, and Marcell van Geest, has been published in the International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education 9 . The paper is included as Chapter 2 of this dissertation.…”

“…Usability of an authoring tool often comes at the expense of expressiveness [73,23]. The open source authoring tool used in Communicate provides expressive constructs for variability in a scenario [55]. A communication skills expert (called scenario author for the rest of the paper), usually a non-programmer, authors a scenario dialogue in the authoring tool.…”

“…Most of the results of this paper come from an MSc thesis [78]. Some results of the thesis have been published in a conference paper [54], which mainly describes the research problem, and a technical report [79], which describes the initial interviews. Section 3.2 describes related work.…”