WULPUS - An Intelligent Problem Solving Environment Delivering Knowledge Based Help and Explanations in Business Management Simulation

Business mangement simulation plays an increasing role in schooling and post-qualification. In complex simulation games the interrelationships between decisions and results are intransparent. This is one reason for inefficient knowledge acquisition. Another reason is the forward chaining architecture of "classical" simulation games. In this paper we describe a prototype of a business simulation game based on hypotheses testing and goal oriented backward chaining. Its design is based on a theoretical framework, the IPSE approach (Intelligent Problem Solving Environment). In order to offer help on the students ́ demand, we integrated a hypotheses testing environment, named "simulation in the simulation". The students may state goals and hypotheses about their reachability and about the consistency of decisions with corporate objectives. The system gives feedback and explains the relations in the business marketing simulation by presenting qualitative information, pricedemand curves, and by using an "enterprise landscape" which contains the decision and result variables of the system, their dependencies, and the qualities of their influences.