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Technology TOOLS OF THE TRADE Simulation Helps Students Learn Real-World Leadership vLeader is designed to go beyond case studies to boost students' leadership and collaboration skills. Online simulations are becoming more popular among busi- ness faculty, offering professors a way to engage students in hands-on learning experiences. But how do the outcomes of simulations compare to more traditional approaches? Alice Stewart, a professor at North Carolina A&T State University's School of Business and Economics in Greensboro, studied that question in 2007, when she pit- ted vLeader, a decision-making and conflict management simulation from Connecticut-based SimuLearn, against traditional case-based learning. In Stewart's study, two groups of students took a profes- sional development course, delivered during two six-hour sessions on consecutive Saturdays. One group was taught a curriculum using the vLeader online simulation, while another covered the same skill sets via the case study method. In addition to participating in class meetings, students in the vLeader group completed five online simula- tions, which presented scenarios that ranged from setting expectations with a subordinate to handling a full-blown crisis as part of a team. In each simulated scenario, students interacted with computer-created characters, or "avatars," each with differ- ent attitudes or information to share. "Students had to decide whether to give positive or neg- ative responses, or whether to support or oppose another character," says Stewart. "They could try sequencing their responses differently to try to accomplish a goal." They had to determine what responses were most likely to win the cooperation of the characters involved, she explains. Two months after completing the course, all of the students went to the Greensboro campus of the Center for Creative Leadership to run through a live leadership exercise, where they solved a problem in the office of a simulated company. During the exercise, Stewart and CCL representatives stood behind a glass partition to watch the students work. Once the CCL exercise began, the students who had learned through case studies immediately went into "student mode," sitting down and going through their information packets, says Stewart. Throughout the day, they sat in their offices and focused mostly on their areas of responsibility, calling others in to discuss the problem in one-on-one conversations. 60 BizEd JULY/AUGUST 2009 Playing the roles of avatars, students practice their leadership and decision-making skills in vLeader's online simulation. But those who had learned with the simulation began the exercise by calling everyone together in a meeting to dissect the problem, says Stewart. "By the end, the vLeader students had more knowledge across the organi- zation compared to the traditionally trained group." As a result, the simulation group performed signifi- cantly better in terms of the quality of information they elicited from others, the quality of information they shared, and the quality of their decisions, as measured by CCL administrators. Many great leaders have an intuitive talent for man- aging conflict, knowing when to push, when to back off, and when to deflect tension, says Stewart. Simulations can help those who don't have this inherent talent to "build that part of their brains" in a deliberate way, encouraging them to try different responses to see what happens. "In the CCL simulation, students were able to model the behaviors they'd already learned," she says. "The online simulation helped them think about leadership purposefully rather than intuitively." For information on vLeader, visit www.simulearn.net. To learn more about the project with the Center for Creative Leadership, contact Stewart at acstewa1@ncat.edu. ■ z