Simulating Success: SL-to-RL Border Guard Training Simulation Improves Test Scores By 28%

Back in May, I wrote about an innovative Loyalist College program that used Second Life to teach students preparing to train with the Canadian Border Services Agency.  The college's Virtual World Design Centre created a simulation of the US/Canadian border in SL, then used VOIP so students could roleplay as guards interviewing drivers coming across.  The students, program director Ken Hudson (Kenny Hubble in SL) told me then, "gained confidence from the experience, and that they had a competitive advantage for job placement over others who did not have the experience."  I was curious if that confidence translated to real metrics, and recently followed up with Hudson.

"Yes, we have some metrics," he told me, "and they are quite positive."  For these students, 15% of their final grade in the class is determined by demonstrating their border interview skills.  In 2007, before the SL simulation was added, he said, the students' average grade was 58%.  This year, with the simulation in place, Hudson told me, "student interview skills average grade [is] 86%."  So overall, a 28% improvement-- too significant to ignore.

Ken will formally present his findings at the Second Life® Education Community Conference next week, so if you're going to Tampa, Florida, watch for it.

Comments

[micha]

kenny, the developer of the border sim, was also generous enough to let a bunch of artists use it for our performance examining the relationship of borders, gender and prisons...

see the youtube video here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiEpS_H4aMs

and read about the performance here.

[Jeff Lowe]

This mirrors some performance improvement results I've read of elsewhere. I wonder how a live-action practice session would impact the results versus the virtual simulation (with a cost comparison to go along with it). Would be interesting...

Thanks for the post.

[RubyTuesday]

Excellent question, Jeff. Although, when we are talking about distance education (which eliminates the possibilities of live-action practice), we'll take anything that works...