Corporate gaming
Stephen Davies examines the use of digital games based learning for auditor training and competency assessment
The chances are four to one that employees under the age of 34 have been playing video games since their teenage years. Organizations are now capitalizing from this information by using new technology and software to train, transfer knowledge and elicit behaviour changes within their workforce. Digital games based learning (DGBL) is a merger of two seemingly opposed worlds: serious learning, found in schools and in businesses, and interactive entertainment, derived from computer and video games.
Using techniques developed in the interactive entertainment industry, DGBL makes computer-based learning appealing to the end-learner. For many years, video games have been covertly using advanced learning principles to teach players how to use their complicated software products. The addictive quality of video games is a by-product of these embedded learning strategies and thus an ideal tool to solidify knowledge.
Not only does DGBL create appealing content for today’s learners, it also helps organizations prepare for the coming shift in learner demographics. Business and training managers, for the most part, do not realize the impact and significance of video games in today’s media landscape, but their employees do. More and more gamers are entering the workforce with alternate needs for information absorption.
One step further
Candadian-based developing and publishing firm i2 Learning has invented interactive software that trains and assesses skills and behaviours with a platform that will be reusable in a number of corporate settings. The content creation tools give organizations the ability to insert their own content.
The DGBL approach defines what knowledge an auditor needs to perform an audit (by examining a defined standard) and what competences are essential in the audit itself. For example:
- asking the right type of question (open, closed, non-leading)
- interpreting answers to guide the direction of the audit
- covering the scope of the audit in an allotted timeframe
- reacting to changes in body language of an audit subject
- spotting relevant information within the environment being audited
Traditionally, these auditor competences are trained or examined by people watching the auditor perform on-site. Now they can do so in their own time with a virtual environment which allows for consistent, yet flexible, delivery of a simulated training or assessment scenario.
How does it work? A DGBL product recreates a real environment such as an office and its employees. It is possible to embed the surroundings with key pieces of information, like broken boxes in a warehouse or out of date labels on calibrated equipment for example, and give the characters unique personalities portrayed through verbal reactions and body language cues.
The next step is to create content based on a pre-existing standard that needs to be trained or tested. In existing knowledge-based platforms information tends to be presented serially, with testing at regular intervals likely using multiple-choice questions. DGBL implants this information into the fabric of the game itself, with the player using their skills to uncover and then process the information to provide accurate assessments of the virtual organizations.
The advantage for the player is that by interacting with the virtual surroundings and the people within it, they are not only solidifying their comprehension of the standard they are auditing, but they are also learning to probe for information and examine subtle social and environmental details. For example, if they ask the wrong type of question, or the right question at the wrong time (eg when the audit subject is no longer engaged) they may not get the information that they are looking for. These sophisticated mechanisms are what allow organizations to then test the competences of an auditor.
The DGBL platform is also a valuable research and benchmarking tool. Let us presume that a nominated group of expert auditors have already played through the environment. It is possible to track their progression. By doing so, we are creating a model of a good auditor. Player results can then be compared against the ideal to quantitatively evaluate their level of competency.
DGBL is a natural enhancement to most existing training and certification platforms. The interactive and intuitive aspects of the approach are unexpectedly engaging - adding considerable value, not only to certification and training bodies, but also to the end user. The approach is so innovative it has grabbed the attention of an industry group calling themselves the ‘serious games movement’.
Building on what serious games have begun, content creation tools based on DGBL promise to go even further. By making content adaptable for use by individual organizations and exploring a more enriching hands-on simulation, DGBL may become the de facto standard for on-line competency training and assessment.
About the author
Stephen Davies is from i Squared Learning Inc, a developer and publisher of DGBL for training and certification industries. For more information please contact s.davies@i2learning.com or phone +1 (613) 862-9086.