Wednesday, October 18, 2006

Video games and assessment


Everyone has ideas for things they'd like to do one day and they just haven't gotten around to it yet. For me, one area I'm interested in is the application of video game technology to recruitment and assessment.

This is
not a new idea but it deserves much more attention that it receives. Why? Because (1) more than 45 million American households own video game machines, and (2) it's a technology with boundless potential for engaging students, teaching competencies, offering realistic job previews, and assessing job-related competencies.

The Federation of American Scientists just released a
report on the value that video games can play in education which is discussed in this AP article .

As far as I know, the only organization doing serious work in this area is the Army (not coincidentally they also have a great recruiting website), who distributed a "first person shooter"
video game (free, no less).

It's time we moved beyond static recruiting and situational videos and seriously start to explore how interactive computer simulations can assist with recruitment and assessment efforts. I'm all eyes/ears if anyone knows of other applied work in this area.

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