NIFV - T1 a Serious Game Concerning Triage with Use of an Intelligent Tutoring System
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
NIFV - T1 A Serious Game concerning Triage with use of an Intelligent Tutoring System MSc Thesis M.M. Hendriks June 2008 NIFV - T1 2 / 167 NIFV - T1 NIFV – T1 A Serious Game concerning Triage with use of an Intelligent Tutoring System MSc Thesis M.M.Hendriks 1150014 Man-Machine Interaction Group Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science (EEMCS) Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) Graduation committee : Prof.dr. L.J.M. Rothkrantz Ir. P. Wiggers Dr.ir. A.R. Bidarra Th.J.A. Uffink, RN, CCRN, MSc Abstract : In a Mass Casualty Incident, medical personnel aren’t able to help all the victims in a disaster area at once. Therefore, triage is performed to classify the casualties into groups of urgency. In the Netherlands, a new triage procedure is going to be introduced in the beginning of 2009. The triage system requires medical workers to re-learn and train the reasoning patterns of the new methodology. This MSc thesis will describe the creation of a serious game that will help medical workers train the triage procedure. In order to track and respond to the user’s actions in the game an Intelligent Tutoring System (ITS) will be implemented that is specifically designed for communicating with the game and the underlying game engine. The global ITS framework is used for three different observation and manipulation functions: the monitoring of the player’s movement, the providing of feedback on the user’s actions concerning triage and the automatic creation of a disaster scenario. This last function will generate a disaster area at random for the player to search victims in. The main focus of this project is the creation of an instructional tool for learning triage and the implementation of a placement algorithm for the automated creation of a disaster area. The complete application will be created with help from the Valve Source engine. This engine provides users the necessary functionality to create a digital game for PC. With this basic functionality already implemented, focus can be more towards the actual creation of the framework and game content. Expert knowledge regarding triage procedures, forms of evaluation and victim data are provided by the Nederlands Instituut Fysieke Veiligheid (NIFV). Experts at this institute were also willing to participate in a small preliminary test to get a first opinion of the implemented game. These participants were excited about the created pilot and the feedback it provided. Although this was only a preliminary test, further development in this type of training and learning will be very useful for all kinds of relevant topics in disaster management. 3 / 167 NIFV - T1 4 / 167 NIFV - T1 Abstract In a Mass Casualty Incident, medical personnel aren’t able to help all the victims in a disaster area at once. Therefore, triage is performed to classify the casualties into groups of urgency. In the Netherlands, a new triage procedure is going to be introduced in the beginning of 2009. The triage system requires medical workers to re-learn and train the reasoning patterns of the new methodology. This MSc thesis will describe the creation of a serious game that will help medical workers train the triage procedure. In order to track and respond to the user’s actions in the game an Intelligent Tutoring System (ITS) will be implemented that is specifically designed for communicating with the game and the underlying game engine. The global ITS framework is used for three different observation and manipulation functions: the monitoring of the player’s movement, the providing of feedback on the user’s actions concerning triage and the automatic creation of a disaster scenario. This last function will generate a disaster area at random for the player to search victims in. The main focus of this project is the creation of an instructional tool for learning triage and the implementation of a placement algorithm for the automated creation of a disaster area. The complete application will be created with help from the Valve Source engine. This engine provides users the necessary functionality to create a digital game for PC. With this basic functionality already implemented, focus can be more towards the actual creation of the framework and game content. Expert knowledge regarding triage procedures, forms of evaluation and victim data are provided by the Nederlands Instituut Fysieke Veiligheid (NIFV). Experts at this institute were also willing to participate in a small preliminary test to get a first opinion of the implemented game. These participants were excited about the created pilot and the feedback it provided. Although this was only a preliminary test, further development in this type of training and learning will be very useful for all kinds of relevant topics in disaster management. 5 / 167 NIFV - T1 6 / 167 NIFV - T1 Acknowledgements Within a year of working on this thesis, I have come to meet a lot of people who were more than willing to help me with this project. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all these people for their support. First of all, I would like to thank my supervisor Prof.dr. Leon Rothkrantz, for his valuable advice throughout this complete project. Regarding the content of this thesis and the structure of the implemented game, he has helped me make clear decisions and a global perspective on the project. Secondly, my thanks go out to the NIFV, for providing all expert knowledge on the triage process and especially for letting me use the victim database in the serious game. Also giving the opportunity to create a serious game that might later be used to train medical workers was a great experience for me. Special thanks go out to Theo Uffink, my supervisor at the NIFV. Many ideas and thoughts have come from our meetings and brainstorm sessions in Arnhem. Another person to mention is Marco van Wijngaarden, who gave the initial go, but left the NIFV at the beginning of this project. I would also like to thank all the co-workers at the NIFV for participating in the user study. Without this, the project wouldn’t be completed. I would also like to thank the Valve Developer’s Community for providing me with workable solutions and good alternatives to the problems I’ve encountered with the creation of the game. Last but certainly not least, my thanks go out to all of my friends and family for supporting me. Thank you all for reading and commenting my thesis and for providing a good balance between working and relaxing. Special thanks to Alexander Fijlstra for the creation of the victim model and the audio files in the game. Only one person is left to thank, and that is my girlfriend Linda. Lin, you have been a tremendous help throughout this project and I don’t know what I would have done without you. Thank you for your love and support. 7 / 167 NIFV - T1 8 / 167 NIFV - T1 Contents Chapter 1 - Introduction.....................................................................................................................13 1.1 - Relevance ..............................................................................................................................13 1.2 - Serious games........................................................................................................................14 1.3 - Intelligent Tutoring Systems .................................................................................................14 1.4 - Automated Scenario Creator .................................................................................................14 1.5 - Problem definition.................................................................................................................15 1.6 - Overview ...............................................................................................................................15 Part I - Theory .....................................................................................................................................17 Chapter 2 - Triage..............................................................................................................................19 2.1 - Methods.................................................................................................................................19 2.2 - Triage procedure....................................................................................................................20 2.2.1 - SIEVE.............................................................................................................................21 2.2.2 - SORT..............................................................................................................................23 2.3 - Summary ...............................................................................................................................25 Chapter 3 - Serious Games ................................................................................................................27 3.1 - Examples ...............................................................................................................................29 3.1.1 - America’s Army .............................................................................................................29 3.1.2 - Hazmat: Hotzone............................................................................................................29 3.1.3 - Global Conflict: Palestine...............................................................................................30 3.1.4 - Serious Gordon...............................................................................................................30