Defining Construction Management Events in Situational Simulations

The challenge and promise of educational computer simulations are to provide user experiences that allow for immersion into a dynamic system in which users discover the ramifications of their decisions in a complex environment. Researchers at the University of Washington, in collaboration with Michigan Technological University, are developing situational simulations to meet the needs of construction management education. The simulation environment, known as the Virtual Coach, helps users to further develop their decision-making skills in a problem-based learning setting whereby they investigate, integrate and apply concepts in a participatory, contextually rich, educational, yet fun video game-like virtual environment. This paper explores the development of this contextually rich and general-purpose environment and the user’s experience as they progress from Project Awareness to Project Monitoring and into Project Management. In the Virtual Coach, users view project information in both Project Awareness and Project Monitoring. As the project and Simulation Events unfold, the user interacts with the simulation, making decisions that impact the project outcome. A Simulation Event includes the user’s experience, variables altered by the event, and variables changed by the user. This paper defines the concept of Simulation Events within the context of the Virtual Coach, explains how the users become aware of an Event and how Events are triggered in the simulation, describes how users engage with the simulation (i.e., what variables are in play), and identifies types and formats of information available to a simulation developer to shape the learning outcomes.