Four Lines of Analysis for Civil Security Crisis Simulations: Insights for Training Design

Abstract

Crisis simulation training is a common organizational tool to improve civil security preparedness. Although nowadays its overall benefits can’t be denied, the conditions under which these simulations offer improvement opportunities remain often unclear. The aim of this chapter is to derive new lines of analysis from a study conducted in a crisis simulation training program based on two principles: (i) confrontation of the trainees to stressful, complex, dynamic, and verisimilar situations and (ii) testing modalities of action and organization that were not prescribed, or only partially. Ergonomics methods (direct observations, field notes, interviews, and self-confrontation interviews) were used to document and analyze protection, rescue, and care stakeholders, and decision makers’ experience and actions during two crisis simulations in operational command posts. The results are developed along four lines: (i) enactment-reenactment, (ii) curriculum-discovery, (iii) perturbation-reassurance, and (iv) trust-mistrust. They allow us to precise the link between (i) typical simulation-based training experiences, (ii) actors’ dispositions to crisis management, and (iii) simulation training design principles likely to provide promising learning affordances in authentic settings.