Which is one reason that design should be more focused on what the audience needs to learn, then on what the sim needs to be able to replicate.
Defining the scope of a programs capabilities to replicate reality would seem to always be a losing proposition. That said should the main concern with any simulation meant for training be not to replicate reality so much as to have the ability to create in those who use it a similar decision making requirement to that which they will experience in real life.
Much like raising our own children there is too often IMHO the habit of providing direction rather than guidance. By that I mean we tell them what to and what not to do in circumstances as they arrive. This may be effective in preparing them for much of what they will face but it leaves out a key component of learning. By providing solutions we infer a lack of necessity to prepare for that which is different or unplanned for. They may make the right decisions when they see similar things but when it comes down to something completely different what tools have we actually provided them with for effectively making the right choices on their own.
Yes, I realize we're talking about adults here but in order to honestly do our best to provide good tools we must be willing to recognize that which we may not like too. To often adults tend to follow the same pattern of looking for the answers rather than seeking out how to find the answers and as such there is often a repetition of bad answers since those were the ones most readily available. Precedent may be a good thing in some constructs but over all they tend to negatively reinforce bad habits just as much as they help. There is a difference between principles and prescriptions and if we don't make a concerted effort to delineate between them we will continue to fail in efforts to provide workable tools for decision making.
In relation to things becoming too complicated as the training audience gets larger, I simply ask that we consider this. Anything whole is made up of it's parts. If you can train the parts with relative efficiency why does it not follow that training the whole would be any more difficult since each of those parts still have the main requirements to fill which you train at the smaller scale.
This is what I think those who seek to teach how to think rather than what to think really are trying to get at and personally I can't see what the problem is with that.
As I said true enough, just keep in mind what the learning objective actually is.
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