Mirror, mirror on the wall...

Geschreven door Liza Meuldijk | January 18, 2016

Who communicates the best of them all? Training with interactive video roleplay is not a natural thing for everyone. “It is a bit scary to look at yourself on video,” is an often-heard reaction. And rightly so. It is confronting to see yourself awkwardly look into the camera at first, thinking of what to say to the customer that is looking you straight in the eye through the mirror on the wall (your tablet screen). But, oh yes, practice makes perfect. And a level of conscious inability is the first step towards subconscious ability.

Self-assessment?zelfscoring.jpg

A new feature that has been added to the video roleplay recently is the self-assessment question. The name says it all: the participant assesses his or her own performance on the basis of a set of guiding questions. How does it work? In an exercise, a participant has to, for example, react emphatically to a customer who complains about a product that was delivered late. In this training, reacting emphatically was defined as:

1: summarising the story;
2: acknowledging the customer’s emotion;
3: reacting to this with reflection.

Consciously unable

Directly after the participant’s reaction, the participant is asked by the means of a checklist if he or she has incorporated these components. By answering these questions, the participant reflects on his or her performance right away and he or she can adjust their next try. In this way, the participant is stimulated to look at his or herself critically, and an immediate learning effect is formed. 

“After recording your video, it is really transparent what you should have said and what you should not have said because of the questions.” - a participant’s feedback

It is a nice extra that the norm is immediately clear because of these assessment questions, and participants are stimulated to practice every exercise multiple times. It also feels nice to check off all assessment questions, instead of continuing to the next exercises knowing you have not checked all points.

“The checks after your first try are very useful for improving your second try.” - a participant’s feedback

Results

Participants are more involved with their own learning process and they start to evaluate their own performance on a meta-level. This results in instant transparency in the elements that were well done and those that need improving, which will intrinsically motivate the participant to improve the competences that were not on par yet. And this self-assessment was received well: 93% of the first 104 participants were more than satisfied! This also means that within a training, you could move towards an adaptive form: participants only practice what is relevant to them. Because why would you practice something that you have already mastered?

Do you think you should practice what you are already able to do? Comment below! Would you like to see how self-assesment is incorporated in our e-training? Then click below for a demo.