That PEGs the Question: Is it a Game?

Many professions critically depend on people making the right decision in stressful situations, because human lives are at stake. Think of medical doctors, law enforcement, fire fighters, and the military, which often have to deal with emergency situations. It also applies to lines of work in which there is no direct emergency, but where mistakes can have disastrous consequences. Examples are pilots and plant operators in the chemical or nuclear industry. As with most things in life, practice and training improves the skills that are necessary to carry out these daunting tasks. However, unlike practicing playing the piano, most of these high-risk professions cannot be practiced in real life situations. Not only would that be too dangerous, it is also prohibitively expensive. In most cases, the only alternative is to use scenario-based training (SBT) in which real situations are staged in a simulated environment. The participants engage in role playing and acting out specific (emergency) scenarios. One major drawback of this method is that many people are involved (for acting out the various roles in the scenario, as well as for monitoring and evaluating the entire exercise) and that suitable locations must be found and prepared, all of which is expensive and time consuming. A second drawback is that the scenarios are usually quite rigid, which means that there is little room for changes and deviations once the training is underway. This inflexibility also instills a one-size-fits-all approach whereby all trainees find themselves in pretty much the same situations. SBTs do not consider specific personal requirements of each individual trainee. In addition, it is not possible to train specific aspects more frequently than others. To use the piano analogy again: in SBT you cannot rehearse the more difficult parts without playing the entire sonata.