Studies indicate the policing profession is rapidly and widely embracing simulation-based learning to advance levels of preparedness of officers for the unpredictable, dynamic, multi-faceted, and often life-threatening circumstances in which they work. This paper explores the influence of simulation-based learning on the decision-making and performance of first-year operational police officers for responding to incidents involving persons with a mental illness (PwMI). Through employing a survey with Likert scale and open-ended questions, the study explored the perspective of these officers in reflecting on the authenticity, realism, and relevance of the simulations from their operational experience. The findings indicate 100% of the officers had attended PwMI incidents in the field, 81% agreed that when attending their first PMI incident, their decision-making was influenced by their simulation-based experience, and 86% of the officers agreed the practical simulations were realistic. This study highlights the important contribution that is to be made by including the field-based reflection on the design, authenticity, and professional development of simulation-based education and training approaches in developing best practices for policing PwMI.
Background Innovative teaching strategies, such as gamification, are increasingly being integrated into nursing education to promote engagement and active learning. Digital escape rooms (DERs) offer an immersive and collaborative environment, yet current evidence mainly focuses on general satisfaction, with limited exploration of factors influencing perceived learning. Objectives This study aimed to evaluate nursing students’ experiences and perceived learning in a DER activity and to assess the perceived learning, educational value and potential applicability of DERs to other areas of the nursing curriculum. Method A cross-sectional study was conducted with second-year nursing students participating in a DER based on a simulated clinical case related to the nursing process. Data collection included sociodemographic variables, the Gameful Experience Scale (GAMEX) , and students’ perceptions of the activity’s usefulness and transferability. Results Students reported high levels of enjoyment and creative thinking during the DER activity. Most participants (94.3%) perceived the experience as beneficial for their learning and useful in exam preparation (90%). Prior academic escape room experience was associated with higher activation scores (p = 0.01), while a higher previous motivation level was significantly related to greater creative thinking (p = 0.02) and activation (p = 0.01). Opinions varied regarding the suitability of DER s for other subjects. Conclusion The DER provided a meaningful learning experience, supporting students’ perceived learning and engagement. However, findings should be interpreted with caution due to reliance on self-reported outcomes, convenience sampling, and the specific educational context. From a practical perspective, these results highlight the importance of careful instructional design and faculty preparation when integrating DERs into nursing curricula. Future research should further explore the role of digital competence, teamwork dynamics, and longitudinal learning outcomes.
Background Postsecondary education (PSE) opportunities for students with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) are expanding through Comprehensive Transition Programs (CTPs). However, approaches that authentically capture these students’ voices and lived experiences remain limited. Participatory game co-design, particularly through micro tabletop role-playing games (TTRPGs), offers a novel and inclusive method to engage students in reflecting on their academic, social, and personal transitions. Purpose This study investigated the use of micro TTRPG participatory co design as a tool for eliciting perceptions of PSE students with IDD, focusing on their experiences in a CTP. Method Students enrolled in a CTP collaborated with a staff facilitator to co-design three micro TTRPGs centered on academic, social, and personal challenges. Qualitative and quantitative data were collected through the design process, including the game topics generated, student surveys, and a semi-structured staff interview. Additionally, students and staff shared perspectives on the potential utility of micro TTRPGs for supporting perspective-taking and transition-related discussions. Results The co-design process yielded three micro TTRPGs that highlighted key challenges and opportunities faced by students with IDD in their CTP experience. Data revealed that the games fostered student voice, emphasized their lived experiences, and encouraged reflection on transition supports. Both students and staff identified micro TTRPGs as a promising strategy for promoting engagement and dialogue around academic and social transitions. Discussion and Conclusion Findings underscore the potential of participatory micro TTRPG co-design as a meaningful and inclusive approach to transition support for students with IDD in PSE contexts. By centering student voices in creative and collaborative design processes, micro TTRPGs may inform future program development, enhance student engagement, and strengthen practices that support inclusive postsecondary pathways.
Background This study explores teacher-practitioners’ roles, strategies, and challenges in developing a Generative AI (GenAI)-enhanced educational simulation. Using collective autoethnography, this study focuses on iterative refinement processes that remain underexamined in research on educational uses of GenAI. Methods Grounded in Cultural-Historical Activity Theory, we analyzed the experiences of three South Korean teacher-practitioners who co-developed a simulation integrating ChatGPT in Roblox. Data included reflective journals, group discussions, development artifacts, communication records, and contribution tracking derived from these materials, which were analyzed through a triangulation matrix aligning eight development phases with five practitioner roles. Results Five practitioner roles were identified: Designer, Instructor, Programmer, Builder, and Manager. Across eight development phases, these roles shifted in response to technical, pedagogical, and ethical demands. This pattern reflected contextual expertise activation, in which practitioners redistributed existing expertise across roles during the design process. Conclusion The findings show how teacher-practitioners coordinated instructional and design decisions while developing a GenAI-enhanced educational simulation. They also suggest implications for professional development, especially in technical upskilling, reflective design, and collaborative role flexibility.
Purpose of the Research This article explores simulation games (SGs) as epistemic and cultural artefacts, focusing on the role of media of representation in shaping knowledge creation and meaning-making. Drawing on perspectives from the anthropology of knowledge and epistemology, we argue that SGs communicate knowledge through symbolic forms - such as language, rules, gestures, and interactions - that are socially negotiated and context-dependent. These media embody specific worldviews and values, and their interpretation is co-constructed by designers, facilitators, and players. The purpose of this article is to provide a scientific definition of media of representation within game science.Major Findings We further examine the epistemological foundations of SGs through the lens of constructionism and constructivism, highlighting how players engage with both tacit (System 1) and explicit (System 2) modes of knowing. This dual engagement has significant implications for game design, facilitation, and scientific analysis. While analytical game science often privileges explicit knowledge, we emphasize the importance of embodied and intuitive understanding in gameplay and debriefing.Conclusions Our findings highlight the added value of an integrative framework for game science that explicitly links media of representation with cognitive systems and social processes. We show that simulation games function not only as interactive systems but as knowledge ecologies, where tacit and explicit knowing are shaped, exchanged, and transformed through media of representation. This perspective advances game science by clarifying how games actively mediate perception, interaction, and learning, rather than merely reflecting reality.
Background Stroke often results in upper limb impairment, requiring repetitive rehabilitation exercises that can be demotivating over time.Aim This study aims to develop and evaluate a rehabilitation system called Catch & Heal, which combines haptic-based gameplay and social robot-mediated motivational support to enhance upper limb therapy and user experience. The novelty of this system lies in its unified design, which combines serious gaming, physical feedback, and social interaction, an integration that remains underdeveloped in current research.Method Developed in Unity, the game adapts fishing mechanics to promote therapeutic wrist movements like push, pull, and rotation, mapped through joystick-based controls. Realistic haptic feedback, delivered via Arduino-driven vibration motors, simulates fish resistance to enhance motor engagement and proprioceptive response. A socially assistive robot provides real-time motivational cues, fostering emotional connection and sustained engagement. A feasibility study involving thirty healthy participants (M = 22.73 years) in a controlled lab setting evaluated usability, engagement, emotional response, and perceptions of robot interaction.Results Outcomes showed high satisfaction with the user interface (M = 4.56), strong in-game immersion (M = 3.56), and favorable reception of the robot's support (M = 4.35). Significant correlations were found between user interface simplicity and aesthetics (r = 0.878), and between immersion and emotional outcomes (r = 0.872), highlighting therapeutic potential.Conclusions This integrated approach offers a promising direction for engaging and emotionally responsive rehabilitation, with future refinement focused on stroke patients.
Background The convergence of information technology (IT) and operational technology (OT) in physical assets offers significant benefits but also presents challenges, particularly in aligning the lifecycles of IT and physical assets. A review of 24 serious games related to asset management and rail revealed a research gap in synchronising the separate IT and OT lifecycles, highlighting the need for a serious game specifically addressing this issue. Consequently, a serious game has been developed to educate professionals on lifecycle alignment within IT/OT convergence.Aim This study aims to iteratively design and evaluate an artefact, the IT/OT Railway Game, to address IT/OT convergence challenges, with an emphasis on understanding the potential of IT/OT lifecycle alignment, assessing strategies, and applying them in a simulated railway context.Method The game was developed using the Design Science Research Methodology (DSRM) and evaluated using the Framework for Evaluation in Design Science (FEDS). Four design iterations and three evaluation cycles were conducted, with 118 participants across 14 sessions. The evaluation focused on playability, game mechanics, and achievement of intended learning outcomes.Results The study designed and evaluated a serious game to educate practitioners on IT/OT lifecycle alignment. A three-step evaluation assesses playability, game mechanics, and learning outcomes to measure learning effectiveness. Findings show a measurable improvement in participants' knowledge and ability to apply IT/OT lifecycle alignment strategies in practice. Furthermore, the study suggests that participatory design can be used not only in serious game development but also as a learning strategy.Conclusion The IT/OT Railway Game demonstrates the potential of serious games as practical tools for addressing sociotechnical challenges, such as IT/OT lifecycle alignment. While developed for the railway industry, its principles are transferable to other sectors. Future research should explore its adaptability and effectiveness in broader industrial and academic contexts.
Background: Prolonged sitting is associated with lower cardiovascular health. However, the generalizability of this observation to casual video game players, who often sit several hours a day while gaming, remains understudied. To address this research gap, casual video game players were compared to physically active controls using retinal vessel characteristics as a proxy of cardiovascular health status. Methods: Twenty-eight healthy male participants (14 casual video game players and 14 controls) aged between 18 and 30 years (mean age: 23.78 +/- 2.92 years) were recruited. In addition to demographic parameters (e.g., regular physical activity [PA], Body-Mass-Index [BMI]), Pre- and post-exercise CRAE, CRVE, and AVR metrics were obtained utilizing a static Retinal Vessel Analyzer surrounding the submaximal test (SXT). Data was analyzed via a two-way repeated measures ANOVA. Results: No significant group differences were observed concerning demographic (e.g., PA) or physiological variables (e.g., CRAE, CRVE, and AVR), despite a higher BMI in video game players (p = .046). After the SXT, only video game players showed a decrease in CRAE (p < .05). Conclusions: Our findings show that casual video game players and physically active controls neither differ at baseline nor in response to a SXT concerning their retinal vessel characteristics or their reactivity, suggesting that casual video gaming is not necessarily detrimental to cardiovascular health if one remains sufficiently physically active The fact that this study was conducted exclusively on university students and the exploratory nature of the study involving multiple comparisons, these preliminary findings should be interpreted cautiously and serve to generate hypotheses for future, more robustly powered research.
The study presented here explores the nuanced design elements of the ADELIS (c) model to create inclusive educational simulation-based learning exercises and environments. The ADELIS (c) model offers a framework that guides the design of learning experiences to enable scalable adaptations across cognitive levels and abilities, premised on educational rigour and authentic, fit-for-purpose exercises and environments. Pivotal expectations for simulation-based learning are for learners to engage in experiential, risk-free practice that enhances critical thinking, decision-making, develop an understanding of how to transfer learning from the classroom to the field of operation and support learning efficacy.Purpose This paper proposes an expansion of the design process to enable accessibility principles to accommodate diverse learning needs, including individuals with physical, sensory, or cognitive disabilities be designed into the ADELIS (c) model. In the focus on creating authentic, replicated real-world experiences through simulation, the nuanced characteristics of the learners can be unintentionally overlooked when the design is built for a generic application and guided by false assumptions that one size fits all.Method This paper explores combining two fundamental design paradigms - educational fidelity and learner inclusivity and offers a guide for educators, instructional designers, and learning facilitators to achieve recognition of learner attribute diversity.Findings and Conclusion Whilst oriented in the simulation-based learning domain, the guide is equally applicable across the serious games field, and the range of formats utilised to deliver authentic learner-centric experiences and promotion of inclusive participation.
Background Extended Reality (XR), encompassing Mixed Reality (MR), is an emerging platform for immersive team collaboration and training, but little is known about how team dynamics and game experience can be measured and modelled in such settings.Aim This study explores whether MR team games can foster cohesion and performance, and develops an exploratory model linking team dynamics, game experience, and team outcomes.Method Using a quasi-experimental pre/post design, 72 participants (24 teams of three) played an MR escape room in a fully immersive CAVE environment. Team dynamics (e.g., cohesion, trust, efficacy) and game experience (e.g., usability, immersion, aesthetics) were assessed with validated scales. Exploratory Factor Analysis (RQ1) examined the construct validity of the measures. Paired t-tests (RQ2-RQ3) tested pre/post changes in cohesion and performance. Structural Equation Modelling (RQ4) explored explanatory relationships among constructs.Results EFA confirmed that the proposed constructs could be empirically distinguished. Pre/post comparisons showed significant increases in cohesion and perceived performance. SEM path analysis indicated that team dynamics and game experience mutually reinforced each other and jointly predicted performance, supporting the efficacy of the MR escape room game as a team-building tool.Conclusion and Future Research The combined results indicate that MR escape rooms can strengthen team dynamics while offering a useful framework for measuring game experience. Although exploratory in scope, this study provides a foundation for confirmatory research with larger samples, control groups, and real-time behavioral and physiological data.
Background Learning from feedback is an important part of skill improvement. A common assumption is that failure offers superior learning opportunities when compared to success. However, this assumption remains underexplored in natural time-constrained settings.Objective To examine the impact of self-analysis on performance improvement in online speed chess, with a focus on whether analyzing wins versus losses differentially predicts gains in player ratings.Methods Using observational data from roughly 2 million online speed chess games, we studied the association between analysis and performance using regression.Results Analyzing game outcomes was positively associated with rating improvement, with stronger effects observed when players analyzed wins rather than losses. The total number of games played showed only a weak association with improvement, indicating that repetition of an activity alone is insufficient without reflective practice.Conclusions The findings challenge the notion that failure is inherently more instructive than success, suggesting instead that success-based analysis may also offer opportunities for learning improvement. While based on observational data, this study contributes to understanding how feedback mechanisms support learning and performance, particularly in domains requiring rapid, repeated decisions under time constraints.
Background Effective training in traffic incident response is vital for urban law enforcement cadets, particularly for managing complex, high-pressure scenarios at busy intersections. Traditional instructional methods, including lectures, paper exercises, and drills, often fail to replicate the urgency, variability, and procedural complexity of real incidents. This gap may leave cadets underprepared for field deployment.Intervention The Dubai Police Academy utilizes a gamified simulation model developed by the Virtual Technology Center to train cadets in real-time decision-making, traffic management, and procedural compliance under the UAE traffic code. The simulation integrated serious gaming elements, branching narrative scenarios, and real-time performance feedback within a 3D virtual environment. The training was delivered across a 10-week semester, with cadets completing a series of structured simulation sessions embedded within the practical component of the Traffic Studies course.Methods A pilot feasibility study was conducted with 32 final year cadets. Trainees completed baseline, practice, and evaluation scenarios involving dynamic traffic accidents. Data were collected from performance logs, instructor observations, and pre- and post-training surveys. The simulation emphasized experiential learning in immersive, feedback-driven scenarios and deliberate practice, using real-time feedback and adaptive consequences.Results The cadets demonstrated statistically significant improvements in decision-making accuracy (+17.4%), procedural compliance (+28.9%), and documentation quality (+16.8%). The survey data indicated increased confidence and perceived realism. Training was rated as relevant, engaging, and suitable for integration into the regular curriculum.Conclusion This study illustrates the pedagogical and operational value of gamified simulations for police training. By embedding legal accuracy and realistic complexity into a structured feedback loop, the simulation effectively bridged the gap between theory and practice. The findings support the broader adoption of immersive training tools in public safety education and offer a replicable framework for law enforcement agencies worldwide.
Background. Modern Defence forces require adaptable training and simulation environments capable of responding rapidly to shifting operational and geopolitical demands. Legacy, sequential acquisition models often limit responsiveness. Simulation-enabled training, if delivered through agile, system-based practices, can improve readiness and interoperability across Defence domains.Objective. This study examines how the integration of Team and Technical Agility (TTA) and Systems Thinking, operationalised through the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) and reinforced by generative leadership cultures, can enhance Defence simulation delivery and align capability outcomes with the Defence Strategic Review (DSR) and National Defence Strategy (NDS) imperatives.Methods. Using practice-based qualitative analysis, experiential Defence case studies were synthesised and compared against criteria derived from open-source literature workflow efficiency, adaptability, and interoperability. Each case was evaluated to identify how organisational culture and leadership behaviours affected delivery outcomes.Results. Case studies that embedded TTA within SAFe demonstrated faster integration cycles, improved reliability, and stronger cultural alignment with mission needs. Conversely, traditional sequential programs exhibited delays and reduced adaptability.Conclusions. Empowered leadership, cadence-based planning, and DevSecOps-enabled workflows underpin the responsiveness required for future Defence simulation. Embedding technical agility and systems thinking transforms simulation from a support function into a mission-critical capability, enabling joint and coalition readiness.
Background Policy games can frame in silico interventions in public health. This study aims to map the WHO's action framework for health equity, supported by social science theories, onto game components related to non-player characters in digital policy games. Embedded in social system theories, the WHO policy framework provides a robust knowledge base for designing policy games, highlighting the overarching problem and the social issues involved.Method Conceptual mapping is used to translate systems and agency challenges related to health equity into game components.Results Social system theories, with clarified subjective agency, are successfully used to map the WHO's action framework to game components suitable for designing policy games aiming to improve health equity and how social determinants of health emerge and persist.Conclusion This study shows how a solid knowledge base can support the design and theoretical foundation of interventions in policy games addressing health equity. It focuses on configuring the game system and actions of non-player characters. This approach contributes to strengthening the development of non-character players in digital policy games and paves the way for future use of such games to explore and investigate how the structural determinants of health might be created, maintained, and disrupted, as well as revealing the unintended effects of interventions in simulated environments.
Background Improving awareness of Technical Debt (TD) has been demonstrated in prior work using the serious game TDSIM. Assessing how effectively TDSIM supports epistemic change is essential for its continued development. Examining participant play strategies offers a way to quantify a serious game's impact on shifting player epistemic states, while also revealing opportunities for refinement. Yet the literature on serious game player behavior remains largely silent on strategy assessment, a gap our methodology directly addresses.Method The serious game TD-SIM was developed in prior work using real-world players. We analyze prior participant game data for actions taken. Combinations of actions define the concept of agent archetypes. Bayesian analysis is used to calculate probabilities of real-world play conditioned on agent archetypes. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) is used to classify conditional probabilities to which K-Means clustering is applied. Clusters of probability data are the strategies players of TD-SIM use, referred to as player archetypes.Results Our method identifies four player archetypes, characterizing playing strategies as Gaming, Managers, Learning, or Testing. Player archetypes inform and quantify behaviors of players, providing insight into improvement opportunities.Conclusion Measuring player archetypes is complex, but not impossible. We evaluate player archetypes of TD-SIM quantifying design improvements. Identifying and modelling participant playing strategies is a novel enhancement to general serious game evaluation. The benefit of our approach is that it allows us to characterize a player's behavior in a quantifiable manner, which we can measure against intended purpose.
Introduction City-building games, despite their niche status compared to mainstream action titles, significantly influence players' conceptions of urban dynamics, governance, and spatial organization.Objective This study critically analyzes how selected urban simulation games represent the production and management of urban space, highlighting implicit ideological assumptions embedded within their spatial, political, and aesthetic dimensions.Method and results Utilizing qualitative methodologies from critical game studies and urban geography, this paper reveals that most city-building games represent urban development as a centralized, depoliticized process governed by rational managerial authority, often omitting representations of conflict, informality, and social inequality. Through procedural rhetoric, these games naturalize neoliberal and technocratic urban paradigms, reinforcing visions of cities as territories optimized for efficiency rather than as contested spaces shaped by socio-political struggles. While some titles attempt complexity by introducing alternative political systems or ideological conflicts, these remain largely superficial.Conclusions The findings underline the potential of city-building games as influential cultural narratives about urbanism, power, and society, calling for greater engagement between critical urban theory and digital game design to foster more nuanced and socially-aware urban imaginaries.
Background Long queues at polling stations reduce voter satisfaction and raise the cost of running elections. In Australian federal elections, unpredictable arrival patterns and early-voting behaviour make traditional staffing estimates unreliable, often resulting in either under-utilised staff or wait times that exceed an hour.Objectives (1) Build a framework that couples an agent-based simulation of a polling station with a multi objective optimisation engine to reveal trade-offs between operational resources and voter wait times. (2) Generate Pareto-optimal solutions that balance the number of ballot issuing officers with queue waiting duration. (3) Identify which evolutionary multi-objective algorithm provides the best performance for this problem.Methods An agent-based model of a polling station was created in AnyLogic using arrival profiles and processing times collected from the 2017 Bennelong by-election. Six integer decision variables describe the numbers of ordinary and declaration issuing points, screens and lookup methods. The model was linked to the jMetal library and evaluated with three evolutionary algorithms: NSGA II, SPEA2 and IBEA. Experiments covered voter turnouts from 600 to 2000 in steps of 100, using a population of 50 and 30 generations per run. Solutions were assessed with the hypervolume indicator and a hard constraint that average waiting time must not exceed 25 minutes.Results and Conclusion The optimisation produced sets of trade-off solutions for each turnout level. NSGA II and SPEA2 consistently achieved higher hypervolume values than IBEA, indicating better convergence and diversity. The Pareto-fronts show that adding issuing points shortens peak-time queues but increases staffing costs, while fewer points lengthen waits. The proposed framework delivers scalable, evidence-based staffing recommendations that improve voter experience and control election costs.
