PF4202 SIMULATION-BASED LEARNING Improving authenticity of incident investigation lessons through simulation-based learning

Overview

SafeSim Investigation (SSI)
SafeSim Investigation was designed based on the nine principles of authentic learning to provide a safe virtual medium for the players to understand the incident investigation procedure and invoke investigative skills throughout their gameplay. SSI has a gameplay of about 60 minutes, where the first 45 minutes is allocated to the first stage of the game, and the remaining 15 minutes is allocated to the second stage.

In the first stage, players will role-play as a team of three incident investigators which they are tasked to collect evidence in the virtual site in this stage, guided by an incident analysis technique called Event Causation Technique (ECT). This is done through the interacting with non-player characters, collection of objects, and analysing documents. Thus, helping players unlock information about the incident. Players also must respond to quizzes within the game and receive immediate feedback for their responses. In the second stage, players are to recommend appropriate actions to improve WSH of the site based on their findings. At the end of the session, the system will calculate the players’ scores and players can
review their performance and the model answers.

Players were briefed on the game controls and at the same time they can access the game guide, which contains the game controls and shortcut keys, at any point in the game by pressing the F1 key. The tutor and the teaching assistants provided the coaching and scaffolding as recommended in the authentic learning framework.

SSI is designed to support a maximum of three players in each team, and multiple teams can be playing at the same time, but in different virtual worlds. Playing in a group also supports the principle of collaborative construction of knowledge highlighted in the authentic learning framework. Team members can communicate with one another through the in-game chat tool. Players are encouraged to use the chat tool to plan their investigation and distribute tasks among their team members. By having the in-game chat tool, it provides an avenue for the players to present their ideas and thus, allowing the
operationalisation of the articulation principle of the authentic learning framework. The learning objective of the game is as follows:

• Identify and evaluate the reliability and usefulness of different WSH evidence,
• Analyse evidence and information collected using the Event Causation Technique
(ECT),
• Recommend corrective actions and opportunities for continual improvement based
on ECT analysis.

ECT is used throughout the game to provide guidance to the players. SSI provided cinematic to gain the players’ attention as well as to provide the context for the game. In this case, upon logging in using the pre-allocated IDs, the players will be shown a short animation of the player receiving a phone notification about the task given to them, i.e., the summary of
the accident and their game objective.

While waiting for the game to load, SSI reinforces the players with the controls of the game. This is especially useful for first-time players and non-gamers for SSI to guide and familiarise themselves with the controls.

Collecting Evidence
There are three types of evidence that the players can collect in SSI. They are mainly the site evidence, the document evidence and the interview evidence. Players can take up any of these roles (i.e. site investigator, interviewer, document reviewer) at any point of time during the game. Players are expected to find evidence that unlocks the ECT Clue which eventually shows the underlying factor of the accident. It is also noted that evidence collected by other teammates will be recorded into the system to prevent duplication of work.

Apart from correctly identifying the evidence, players are also required to answer the quiz attached to the evidence to obtain a point. No points will be deducted for wrongly answered quiz – i.e. they will receive immediate feedback based on
their choice. Marks will not be given for the subsequent tries after the answer has been revealed. SafeSim Investigation will also provide a feedback mechanism, whereby it will highlight the correct answer in instances where the player chooses the wrong option.

For document evidence, players are required to review the documents and click on the red overlay before it is collected as an evidence. Once the player has collected the document evidence, they are required to click on the ‘Quiz’ button at the top-right corner to answer the corresponding quiz in order to get the full score and unlock the ECT clue.

In order to collect the interview evidence, players can click to interact with the NPCs. A list of questions that can be asked will be available on the right side of the screen. To make the conversations authentic, the dialogues of the NPCs were crafted based on conversations found on sites in Singapore and voice actors were used to record the voices of the NPCs. For example, the players will hear the Chinese workers speak in Mandarin and see the translation on the screen.

Providing Guidance
Proper guidance is crucial in allowing the players to understand the investigative process. Furthermore, majority of the students does not play simulation games and thus, require extra assistance in order to achieve the learning objectives. We provided an Event Causation Technique (ECT) diagram whereby the players can follow through the hints to unlock the ECT clues. ECT guides the investigative process starting with the work context, incident sequence and so on.

The ECT diagram is easily accessible during the game by clicking on the button at the top-right corner of the game screen. The black cards contain clues to guide players on what, how or who to investigate. For example, for ECT Clue (4) in Figure 6, the player is required to review the Safety Violation List and interview one of the NPCs. Once the player has unlocked the clue, the card will turn green as shown in the ECT Clue (3). It is also advisable to unlock the cards from left to right as taught by the PI in his lectures.

Recommending Actions
Once players have unlocked all the ECT clues, the players will be prompted to enter the second part of the game. A step-by-step guide is offered to the players on how to navigate the user interface.

We have provided a list of improvement actions on the right, where the players are required to drag and drop to the appropriate ECT clue cards. Players are also required to select the type and importance through the dropdown menu before
submitting their answers for scoring.

Review of Performance and Model Answers
Once the players have completed both part one and part two of the game, SafeSim Investigation will generate the total score of the player and their teammates. Players can review their collected clues and quiz answers by clicking on the ‘Review’ button. This allow the players to assess their performance, review the items that has been collected by their teammates, and to see the model answer.

Scholarly Articles
We submitted a case study conference paper based on the data collected in 2019/2020 to Joint CIB W099 & TG59 International Web-Conference 2020: Good Health, Wellbeing & Decent Work. The conference paper outlines the need for provide an alternative medium and authentic experience to undergraduates to learn incident investigation through the use of DSG. It also covers the design of the prototype of SSI and the pedagogical framework adopted for the WSH DSG. You can view the proceedings here, and the video presentation here.

A journal paper is currently being prepared based on the data collected in Academic Year 2021/2022 to document the study and its findings.