Virtual Team Training: Implications for Design

The motivating technology behind this EngD thesis was socially complex virtual training environments.

While virtual team training environments serve an entirely different purpose to team-based digital games, as discussed in the introduction the two technologies share a number of common elements such as co-operating and competing teams, direct and indirect interaction between users, groups and subgroups of users interacting, the potential presence of human and computer controlled entities, and the potential for a mixture of friends, acquaintances, and complete strangers interacting. In addition, serious games have been shown to be viable tools for training team-based capabilities [Hussain et al., 2008, Toups et al., 2011, Craighead, 2009]. Therefore the greater understanding of social presence in team-based digital games may be able to contribute in some way towards providing increased training effectiveness for team-based simulations. The following section presents the implication for design of team training scenarios.

1. The Awareness of other Humans

The awareness of other humans within a virtual environment changes user perceptions of that environment, making the environment seem more engaging and changing the way users perceive elements within that environment. Therefore including other human participants within a virtual training scenario could be used to make virtual environments with low interactivity or low fidelity become more engaging. Human team-mates are perceived as being more capable, human opponents are perceived as more challenging than their bot counterparts, and human opponents and team-mates can increase levels of motivation. For example, a virtual training scenario such as air-to-ground fast-jet mission could be made more engaging if the the ground defences were controlled by a human opponent and the trainee had a human team-mate.

Evidence: Chapter 3: Social Gaming Survey, Puji.

2. Limiting the Truth

People cannot always tell the difference between bots and humans in virtual environments. In an envi-ronment with limited interpersonal interaction or generally low communication bandwidth, people are less able to distinguish between computer and human controlled entities. This means that in these scenarios social presence is based as much on a users preconceptions of a virtual situation than any interaction taking place. Therefore people can be told that they are competing or collaborating with a human when they are in fact interacting with a bot. This means that a scenario can benefit from the increased engagement and perceived challenge from the awareness of other humans of deliverable 1. without the need for an actual human. However, deception can cause users to feel tricked, create distrust, and therefore lose interest in a scenario. In addition, if users suspect that an entity might be a bot rather than a human they may shift their focus away from the goals of the training scenarios to establishing the agency of an entity. To mitigate these risks deception should only be used in situations which have very limited interaction between entities and ideally no communication. For example, a fast-jet pilot in a virtual training scenario could be informed that computer controlled surface-to-air missile (SAM) sites are being controlled by a human to increase the perceived challenge they present.

Evidence: Chapter 3: Cooperative Tetris, Problem with Bots, Ambiguity in Unreal Tournament.

3. Team Trust & Learning

Team Performance (winning or losing) has an substantial effect on team trust, however familiarity may be able to reduce the effects. If a team wins then its members are more likely to feel increased team trust, while losing decreases levels of team trust. However losing is often valuable in training, learning what one did wrong and why one failed. This creates the situation in which team training and developing team trust are conceptually at odds. High levels of familiarity within teams can reduce or negate the effects of performance on team trust, therefore scenario design for building trust in teams should reflect the level of familiarity with the team. In the training pipeline of a team it may be advisable to develop training scenarios in which they can achieve high performance levels while developing familiarity. Once a team has reached a high level of familiarity then the training benefits of failure will have less effect on levels of team trust. However a risk with allowing teams to win scenarios is that they may develop a sense of complacency. Such risk could be reduced by allowing teams to achieve high performance rather than necessarily ‘winning’ a scenario. Teams could be put in impossible situations, in which there is no ‘winning’

but team performance could still be perceived as high.

Evidence: Chapter 5: Team Trust & Social Presence.

4. Tactical vs. Hectic

Chaotic or hectic environments reduce social awareness. In hectic or chaotic team-based scenarios people become more focused on their opponents and have a reduced awareness of their team. People also become less aware/concerned about agency, as a result performance has less effect on Cooperative Social Presence and Team Trust. In the domain of fast-jet pilots a hectic situation could be defined as the difference between requiring tactical competency versus dogfight competency. In hectic situations survival is based upon individual skill over team-work, in which a person is in direct and immediate danger from multiple entities. The effect of hectic situations has a number of implications for design. In training scenarios which wish to focus on team training capabilities it may be advisable to avoid hectic situations so that the trainees can focus on team. Alternatively the effect could be designed into a scenario which aims to train team members to remain calm and retain situational awareness of their team in hectic situations.

For example, a training scenario could be designed for testing a squadron leader’s ability to retain team awareness and command & control capabilities throughout a hectic situation. In terms of hardware rather than scenario design, interfaces could be designed to counteract the degraded social awareness caused by hectic situations.

Evidence: Chapter 3: Ambiguity in Unreal Tournament, Chapter 5: Team Trust & Social Presence.

5. Range of Engagement

The range at which a person must engage their opponents in a virtual environment changes their levels of Competitive Social Presence. Engaging an opponent at a great distance reduces Competitive Social Presence in team-based virtual environments, while engaging an opponent in close combat increases a person’s awareness of challenge. Similar to deliverable 4, these effects could be designed in or out of a training scenario depending on the training requirements. To ensure a greater team focus opponents could be kept at a distance, while high levels of challenge and competitive focus could be stimulated by creating close encounters. For example, a virtual team training which aims to focus purely on procedures and high level strategy should maintain a significant distance between the trainees and their opponents.

Evidence: Chapter 5: Team Trust & Social Presence.

6. Team Size

In the team trust study small team sizes produced large statistical effects. Small team size seems to intensify social connections within virtual environments. Small teams create a stronger correlation between Cooperative Social Presence & Team Trust and team performance has a larger impact on Cooperative Social Presence and Team Trust. This means that team trust may develop more quickly in smaller teams, however failure will have a greater negative impact on the team trust. Therefore team trust may be considered as potentially more fragile within small teams. Designing training scenarios which allow small teams to feel part of a larger entity may alleviate this fragility. In an early stage of training small teams completing scenarios which create the perceptions of high performance could accelerate the development of team trust.

Evidence: Chapter 5: Team Trust & Social Presence.

7. Disparity

Disparity, differences in cognitive motivation, specialized knowledge and age, between team members can stunt the emergence of trust. Disparity can lead to a lower levels of team trust and increase the effects of performance on team trust. As low performance will produce a substantial negative impact on team trust within teams with high disparity, efforts must be made to either reduce team disparity or produce perceived high performance while team trust is fostered. For example, disparity may occur between junior and senior personnel and may be a factor in joint forces training.

Evidence: Chapter 5: Team Trust & Social Presence.

8. Perceived Team Cohesion

The perceived level of team cohesion is a central aspect of team trust. Perceived team cohesion is a component of the CCPIG Questionnaire used to measure Social Presence. The level of cohesion a team member perceives to be present within their team correlates strongly with team trust. The more a team member perceived their team to be a cohesive unit, the greater the level of trust that member will have in their team. In addition perceived team cohesion is generally highly sensitive to performance, with members of losing teams perceiving their team to be cohesive. Therefore when aiming to build team trust training systems should be designed to encourage team cohesion, promote an awareness of team cohesion, and where possible explicitly present the team as cohesive. For example, an information system which not only promoted an awareness of the location of their team-mates but tasks they were completing to work towards the joint objectives of the team may increase the perception of team cohesion and thus increase team trust. However perceived team cohesion is generally highly sensitive to performance, with members of losing a team perceiving their team to be less cohesive.

Evidence: Chapter 5: Team Trust & Social Presence.

6.2 Conclusion