There is little doubt that new and emerging technologies will have an impact on how instructional systems are developed and deployed over the next several decades. However, without the necessary scientific base to inform design, sizeable investments will be made into learning systems that are ineffective, or at best, not optimal. The long-term vision of this catalyst project is to extend fundamental understanding of the learning process as a basis for optimizing the use of technology in learning. The overarching goal is to explore how emerging technologies can be better designed to support learning by augmenting, replacing, creating and/or managing a learner's actual experience with the world. Hence the aim is to study synthetic experience as a means to enhance learning and performance. The term synthetic learning environments (SLEs) is being used to describe such systems; this research will generate knowledge that leads to their optimization in both design and implementation. This effort will demonstrate and extend the value of a unique collaboration between education and entertainment as a means to generate innovative teaching approaches and methods for enhancing the learning process.
Many theories of learning and development of expertise have at their core the notion that people use their experience is the basis for learning, particularly in complex, high-performance tasks. Technology has advanced to the point where it is possible to augment, create, replace, enrich and accelerate this natural process of gaining experience (and hence learning) through creation of SLEs. However, in order to make full use of these opportunities, basic research is needed to better understand the nature of synthetic experience -- that is, experience that is deliberately created with hardware and software. Moreover, a host of learning environment features must also be investigated to determine how they are best incorporated into SLEs. The current effort will address these questions by synthesizing past work; creating a conceptual framework for studying synthetic experience; delineating a long-term, prioritized research agenda; and conducting a prototype experiment.
Understanding the psychological consequences of computer-generated synthetic experiences -- specifically, how engaging, believable, realistic, potent, and meaningful they can be -- has enormous potential to effect many aspects of society. For example, if synthetic experiences are processed similarly to actual ones, then there is potential to substitute synthetic experience for actual experience in education and training systems; personalized, interactive entertainment; workforce selection, certification and testing; and perhaps even situations such as counseling and psychotherapy. In addition, this technology has the potential to make learning resources much more accessible (e.g., to underrepresented groups), to individualize them so that traditional barriers to learning for many students can be removed, and to create experiences that many learners would typically be unable to access. The proposed research will lay the groundwork for development of guidelines and tools that will make technology-enabled learning systems widely available and cost effective to develop for use by all learners.
