Getting down to business: Teaching cross-cultural social interaction skills in a serious game

We consider the use of virtual humans and an intelligent tutoring system (ITS) for the teaching of cultural social conventions. Our learning environment is a serious game that requires the learner to establish trust and reach agreements with virtual characters of a different culture. An intelligent tutoring system provides culturally focused learning support during and after the meetings with these virtual characters. In a study intended to determine the effectiveness of the ITS, we found that guidance provided during meetings led to an improved understanding of culturally-related “phases” in meetings (e.g., when to talk about business) as well as greater success in an unsupported posttest meeting, but with no overall increase in cultural understanding when compared with learning in passive and unguided conditions.