Abstract
As serious games are nowadays more frequently used for learning purposes in different domains, the success of the tasks in the organization depends on the stakeholders' training and capabilities, and in the emergency management domain, this is no exception. Accordingly, stakeholders in emergency management need adequate training to respond effectively to an incident. Their perception of safety is a goal for organizations, and proper training could ensure their adequate participation in the activities of emergency plan management. This chapter presents a serious game for training stakeholders to respond to emergency incidents designed to optimize the costs involved. For this purpose, a tool was developed that allowed the learning process to be evaluated through an experiment with a group of workers in an organization. The results obtained were found to be valuable assessments of the learning objectives and showed that serious games contributed to improving continuous training in organizations.
TopIntroduction
The use of serious games, simulations, and gamification techniques (Gaitán, 2013) is now widely used in emergency management training, as it allows the continuous improvement of the knowledge obtained in the training and learning processes, providing improved coordination and unstressful conditions for all those involved. Although there are various tools available for training in emergencies, such as Save Yourself (Alsura, 2021), Stop Disasters (ISDR, 2021), and Emergency and Evacuation Simulator (Galicia, 2021), among others, there is no available tool to evaluate learning in order to validate feedback and enhance the learning process and the continuous improvement of emergency management training.
Proper training of all potential stakeholders in an emergency is of vital importance for obtaining an effective and opportune response. Customized training in the emergency management domain is critical for organizations. Training for the emergency plan must be customized for each stakeholder in each phase of emergency management. Investment in training benefits both the person who receives it and the organization that instructs them. The support of Information Technology (IT) tools in training are also essential (and decreases costs) for the continuous improvement of disaster prevention, emergencies, and reconstruction.
We present a training tool based on serious games and gamification techniques to optimize the response to an emergency, known as a tool for training in emergency response (TiER) (Quiroz-Palma et al., 2019). This tool promotes the development of skills in emergencies, establishing users’ knowledge aspects, and achieving specific learning goals. First, we identified the emergency domains and dimensions of the training plan content. The training content must include theoretical information, experience, and practice (Xing and Hu, 2010). As good training not only includes a set of activities to be carried out periodically but also contains learning objectives, the concept of the capability or training plan was introduced, which incorporates both aspects.
The TiER Tool allows an organization to carry out the training of participants through gaming and provides feedback after each interaction to improve the learning process. It can be used by organizations, communities, and educational institutions because it does not require further resources for its implementation and correct functioning. Its portability means that it can be applied to remote sites with no access to network connections. TiER has been presented in its first version (TiER Tool v1.0) as a tool for training people to evacuate in a fire scenario. It has been evaluated in small and medium organizations but has not yet been evaluated in large organizations; the evaluations were carried out with different stakeholders in the performance of three missions in the case of fire. Currently, we have the second version (TiER Tool v2.0), with some improvements carried out after evaluation. This new version of the tool allows for a pre-game assessment and collects information to determine the relationship between learning and other variables such as age and prior knowledge in case of fire.
This chapter is organized as follows: Section 2 describes the key concepts of e-learning, serious games, gamification, and training for emergency management. Sections 3 and 4 describe the proposed TiER tool and its versions. Section 5 reports on an experiment carried out to test the proposal, the results of which are given in Section 6, and Section 7 contains our conclusions and outlines future work.
TopBackground
The tools for training in emergency management are important for the adequate preparation of those involved since the effectiveness of the execution of each of the phases (planning, response, and analysis) of emergency management depends on it. The support of IT tools in training is also important (and reduces costs) for the continuous improvement of disaster prevention, emergencies, and reconstruction (Prasanna et al., 2011). Tools that incorporate serious games in training, and in this case in emergency management, have been increasing, and there are now e-learning tools that integrate these practices into their digital platforms.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Risk: The combination of the probability of an event and its negative consequences.
Hazard: A dangerous phenomenon, substance, human activity or condition that may cause loss of life, injury or other health impacts, property damage, loss of livelihoods and services, social and economic disruption, or environmental damage.
Serious Games: Serious games are games designed with an educational purpose rather than for entertainment purposes.
Simulations: Simulations are experimentation with a model that mimics certain aspects of reality.
Emergency Management: The organization and management of resources and responsibilities for addressing all aspects of emergencies, in particular preparedness, response, and initial recovery steps.
QuEP Maturity-Level: A maturity level is a well-defined evolutionary phase toward achieving total quality in emergency plan management.
E-Learning: E-learning is teaching and learning we receive online, i.e. through the Internet and technology.
Gamification: Gamification is a learning technique that transfers the full potential of games to the educational environment to improve results.