Advances in the Theory and Practice of Scenario-Based Training - Charting the Road Ahead

摘要

Over the course of the past decade, there has been significant growth in the use of simulation-based training across diverse domains (e.g., military, medical, banking, emergency management). Concurrent with this growth has been a growth in training research and technology development to increase the effectiveness, efficiency and economy of simulation. One model of training, on which much of this research, development and practice is based, is the Scenario-Based Training (SBT) framework (Cannon-Bowers, Burns, Salas, & Pruitt, 1998). In fact, a recent internet search of the term "scenario based training" yielded 2.9 million hits, many of them devoted explicitly to practice. This is not surprising given the generalizability of the model, as well as, its adaptability to a variety of contexts, This flexibility has lead practitioners to depart from the fundamental SBT framework based upon how trainers interact with simulations (e.g., modifying scenarios to capture emerging training needs requiring movement back and forth between the SBT stages counter to the successive nature of the current model; Eitelman, Owens, Fowlkes, Walwanis Nelson, & Atkinson, 2006); unique opportunities that advances in technology present (e.g., artificial intelligence may drive the way events are derived and structured; Graul, McDonald, Walwanis Nelson, & Smith, 2004; Mangos, 2004); scientific exploration of tools that could supplement and/or augment the model (e.g., Situation Judgment Tests have been proposed as a potential tool for use pre, during and post implementation of SBT; Fritzsche, Stagl, Salas, & Burke, 2006); and environments in which the framework is being implemented (e.g., large, distributed tactical teams; Bergondy & Salas, 1999; Eitelman et al., 2006). Despite this considered attention, resulting in many practical and empirically derived principles and guidelines (e.g., Oser, Cannon-Bowers, Salas, & Dwyer, 1999; Salas, Oser, Cannon-Bowers, & Daskarolis-Kring, 1999; Salas, Priest, Wilson, & Burke, 2006), the SBT framework remains unchanged in the scientific literature. This is likely due to the fact that modifications made to the model in practice have not necessarily been shared with the scientific community for empirical test. Given this, there is a need to identify these changes so that the training value can be assessed. Likewise, it is incumbent upon researchers in this area to distill the advances in the training theory and identify the remaining R&D gaps of SBT into a comprehensive publication. Furthermore, in SBT, the scenario is considered to be the curriculum (Oser et al., 1999). The end-to-end process of designing, implementing, and analyzing the scenario embeds the pedagogical goals within the training activity. This has lead to an emphasis on the performance assessment methods, tools and strategies underpinning SBT environments. In particular, efforts to drive the behaviors of the models underlying the training environment in response to trainees' performance have been an area of focus.