Disaster readiness through education - Training soft skills to crisis units by means of serious games in virtual environments

Abstract

The training of soft skills in organizational settings has become very important for an effective communicative exchange between members of staff. Especially in companies where the line of communication has to be fast and unmistakable, e.g. in crisis management units, the regular training of communication skills is therefore indispensable. The DREAD-ED project proposes a technology-based teaching methodology to meet these needs. The methodology provides a serious game which enables its users to train soft skills in a virtual environment under safe conditions. The current paper presents the results of two trials conducted with crisis managers and university students. © 2010 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.