Virtual education has long proved its effectiveness for the trainees since people remember almost 90% of what they do and, thus, can recall later in real life. Scenario-based, gamified virtual training where staff members perform different tasks to acquire specific skills are used, for example, to train senior and middle management, executives, military recruits, and other professionals. Moreover, they appear to be going mainstream replacing traditional training paradigms. While cost-effectiveness is one of the main reasons for this, virtual training still has multiple benefits, for instance, more immersiveness and engagement and the ability to rehearse the training anytime and at any place. What is specifically differentiates virtual training from other alternatives is that the learner and the instructor are usually at different places. Or there is even no instructor at all, just the program with a set of particular "missions" to fulfill. The main power of such virtual training environments is that they can be enjoyed independently or synchronously with a group of other staff members.
However, building virtual training is a laborious and complex task and, in order to be effective, it has to be designed properly to target the selected set of skills. Connecting innovative methods with real-world efforts, making the training experience interesting and engaging, and building an effective system to deliver relevant information is what training is all about. Program-Ace, an R&D development company that specializes in virtual training and simulations for military and education, shares with TrainingMag their experience on the topic of creating powerful training. Anastasiia Bobeshko presented a list of 10 simple rules on how to craft an effective training environment regardless of whether it is a VR-based mission-readiness simulation or a simple educational survey.
