Zero-fidelity simulation of fire emergency response

Abstract

Fire emergency responders rely on team coordination to survive and succeed in high-stress environments, but traditional education does not directly teach these essential skills. Prior simulations seek the highest possible fidelity, employing resources to capture concrete characteristics of operating environments. We take a different tack, hypothesizing that a zero-fidelity approach, focusing on human-centered aspects of work practice, will improve team coordination learning. Such an approach promotes simulation focus by developing an alternative environment that stimulates participants to engage in distributed cognition. The costs of simulation development are reduced.To supplement preparation for burn training exercises, 28 fire emergency response students played the Teaching Team Coordination game (T 2 eC), a zero-fidelity simulation of the distributed cognition of fire emergency response work practice. To test our hypothesis, we develop quantitative evaluation methods for impact on team coordination learning through measures of communication efficiency and cooperative activity. Results show that participants improve cooperation, become more efficient communicators, differentiate team roles through communication, and leverage multiple communication modalities. Given the context of the study amidst the educational process, qualitative data from the students and their expert instructor supports the ecological validity of the contribution of the T 2 eC zero-fidelity simulation to fire emergency response education.

Understanding Engagement within the Context of a Safety Critical Game

“…While the literature suggests that factors such as the level of realism, which is usually interpreted as graphical fidelity [e.g. 28,40,44] and feedback [e.g. 11; 18] are noted as being important to learning within a simulation-based context, it is unclear how they relate to the experience of engagement.…”

Avalanche Beacon Parks

“…Examples include observational studies of air traffic control [11], health care [3], firefighting [21,39,40], avalanche rescue [13] and realworld emergencies [27]. Researchers have also created new systems to better support training, often focusing on collaborative practices.…”

“…Researchers have also created new systems to better support training, often focusing on collaborative practices. Proposed solutions include tabletop systems [11], wearables [9,22], games [27,40], and virtual environments [28].…”

“…However, they also state: "although the three fidelity components are inter-related, psychological fidelity [the degree to which the trainee perceives the simulation to be a believable surrogate for the trained task] is generally considered to be the most essential requirement for team training" [3:i52]. Literature on simulations also proposes that some aspects of practices can be learned without a complete simulation [40] and that in fact a full simulation can be unnecessary [35].…”

“…Toups et al [40] argued for focusing solely on distributed cognition and team coordination training for firefighters, both for economical and focus reasons. They proposed a 'zerofidelity' computational simulation that removes the realistic elements found in higher fidelity simulations to keep only the bare essentials for learning team coordination (such as eliminating fire and smoke visualizations but keeping time pressure for example).…”