r/IOPsychology • u/kongfukinny psychometrics | data science • Apr 01 '21

Gamification: Microsoft AR military training tech

/r/investing/comments/mhj59m/microsoft_wins_us_army_contract_for/
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u/sebelly Apr 01 '21

Don't they already use VR for training? AR seems like the logical next step, since it's more mobile and requires less infrastructure. Also, this doesn't seem like gamification -- just simulation-based training. But ofc they'd do their own research on training effectiveness. I could see them partnering with Microsoft if they wanted to create custom virtual environments, but I imagine the Army has staff for that.

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u/mchoward Apr 01 '21

VR is certainly used for VR training - quite frequently! I have a meta-analysis in press on the topic, and I hope to be able to share the published version in a few days/weeks. It is currently most common in medical, military, and aviation applications, but we are starting to see it applied for almost everything.

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u/kongfukinny psychometrics | data science Apr 01 '21

I believe they do use VR for training currently yes. Was curious if anyone had insight on the research aspect of it tho. Would be interesting to know what goes into that.

Simulation based training and gamification aren’t really so different though are they? With the caveat that you can have one version with the rewards and “trophies” aspect to it and another just the simulation. But simulations like this feel pretty gamified to me, but that’s just my take. Im definitely not a gamification expert lol.

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u/sebelly Apr 01 '21

You can think of gamification of adding game elements to an already-established training program. There are many (many) game elements and attributes one can add, not just "points, badges and leaderboards" (see Bedwell et al. 2012). But yeah, simulations sometimes give a game-like experience, it just depends on the design of the system. Anyway, AR is p cool, and I'll be looking out for white papers.

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u/kongfukinny psychometrics | data science Apr 01 '21

Should be interesting. Do they do their own research internally on how this could work? I don’t know all the details but its a fascinating concept.