Virtual Environment Composable Training for Operational Readiness – Total Instructional Package (VECTOR-TIP)

Cultural skills are increasingly important for military actions recently undertaken by the U.S., where close continuous contact with the indigenous population is necessary. All ground forces being deployed in culturally distinct and sensitive areas need to have at least some basics skills, knowledge, and awareness of cultural norms and prohibitions. Passive learning via lectures, tutorials, videos, or reading material is inadequate to insure that the essential basic knowledge and skills are truly mastered. Alternatively, interactive learning through instructional scenarios with culturally authentic role-players is effective but prohibitively costly to deliver to all but a few select individuals. This proposal addresses the opportunity to leverage game-based technology to address this training opportunity. Game-bases systems however lack the mature instructional sound foundation for learning. To meet this challenge, we propose to integrate instructional/scenario authoring tools, didactic information presentation, and performance assessment/knowledge measurement with an existing game-based training environment. The resultant system, VECTOR-TIP for Virtual Environment Composeable Training for Operational Readiness – Total Instructional Package, will provide a complete Arabic cultural familiarization curriculum within the context of a game-based training system. Results of the Phase I Training Optimization for Generic Game-based Learning Environments (TOGGLE) effort and plans for VECTOR-TIP development are discussed.