Doctoral thesis: Virtual simulation-based training (VSBT) promotes quick decision-making by rescue team leaders in time-critical situations
Virtual simulation-based learning, is an effective method of training rescue team leaders to make time-critical decisions. However, successful training requires good trainers and learning materials: in this case, virtual simulations. Stella Polikarpus, a PhD student at Tallinn University’s School of Educational Sciences, studied the factors that help trainers implement VSBT.

Up to 2016, the Rescue Service had no scientific way of effectively applying VSBT to hone and assess the situational awareness and time-critical decision-making of rescue team leaders. There was also a lack of knowledge on how trainers could create virtual simulations themselves. As part of her doctoral thesis, Polikarpus devised two design solutions for the Rescue College of the Estonian Academy of Security Sciences: a continuous training programme for all rescue team leaders in Estonia; and a Collaborative Authoring Process Model for Virtual Simulations (CAPM)for trainers. The study found that the continuous training programme helps rescue team leaders master the three phases of situational awareness (perception, understanding information and prediction) and basic psychological needs for competence, relatedness, and autonomy in time-critical decision-making training. The five-step co-authoring process model has helped the trainers themselves come up with dozens of virtual simulations that can be used to assess situational awareness and decision-making in time-critical situations.
In addition, Polikarpus explored the role of trainers in the implementation of VSBT in an organisation. The cross-sectional study showed that trainers play a key role in the implementation of VSBT and that those who have real experience of using VSBT in their teaching have a more positive attitude towards this learning method. The study noted with interest that if a trainer had created virtual simulations that were used in teaching or had taught others to create them, they then (and only then) integrated technology, pedagogy and subject knowledge. However, if the trainer had used virtual simulations created by someone else in their teaching, this integration did not take place.
In conclusion, the implementation of VSBT in an organisation allows both learners and trainers to learn, to raise their level of situational awareness and to practise decision-making authentically in a time-critical situation. To the best of the author's knowledge, such a finding is unique in the world, as VSBT has not been applied elsewhere at the national level to develop and assess the situational awareness and decision-making of rescue team leaders in time-critical situations. This provides Estonia with the opportunity to set an example to other countries in making rescue work safer and more efficient.
Stella Polikarpus, PhD student from Tallinn University School of Educational Sciences defended doctoral thesis "The Role of Trainers in Designing and Implementing Virtual Simulation-Based Training in Rescue Organisations" on 30. October. Supervisors wereTimo Tobias Ley, Professor at Tallinn University and Katrin Poom-Valickis, Professor at Tallinn University. Opponents were Margus Pedaste, Professor at the University of Tartu and Ilona Heldal, Professor at the Western Norway University of Applied Sciences.