Metodologia iterativa e modelos integradores para desenvolvimento de jogos sérios de treinamento e avaliação de desempenho humano

Abstract

Training aims to improve the professional competences (knowledge, skills and attitudes) and it is essential particularly in risk activities to the life, property and environment. Due to the risk and cost of traditional practical training, serious games, which reproduce systems, processes and real-world objects in a safe virtual environment has been used as an effective tool for learning and training or motivation to learning, and support for assessment during and post-action. On the other hand, the development of serious games is a complex process, has development high cost (time, money, resources), need highly qualified professionals, who hold requirements of learning, assessment, simulation and game itself. Different methodologies have emerged for developing serious games, however, in general, they do not include the different dimensions and need to be combined and balanced with other methodologies to achieve the training and assessment objectives. This thesis presents a novel iterative methodology (named DevJSTA) for the development of serious games for training and human performance assessment (named JSTA), which integrates multidisciplinary teams by providing guidelines, artifacts, game elements and simulation models (formalisms of discrete events, automata and Fuzzy logic) to integrate and include concepts such as effective and experiential learning in serious games, besides providing feedback during the simulation and at the end. This methodology DevJSTA describes the professional roles, the development life cycle, the generated products and the technologies and tools that can be used to create these products, as well as a support architecture and generic components. The main differential of this methodology is its holistic approach that integrates pedagogical principles of learning and assessment in the development of simulation. The methodology was evaluated through interviews with software engineering experts, serious games developers and domain experts. The results were positive and confirmed the need of these new methodology that is integrative. To validate the methodology, one JSTA was created to train firefighters to control the cooking gas leak, and to evaluate the trainee’s perception and performance. Serious game fidelity and effectiveness were also validated. Moreover, the serious game development, with the use of the methodology DevJSTA, allowed to evaluate an opportunity for improvement in the current protocol that is used in the Fire Department.