We are happy to hear that you liked our video.  Here are some publications that discuss our work in more detail that you may find interesting :

• Bodnar, C.A., Dringenberg, E., Butler, B., Burkey, D., Anastasio, D., Cooper, M. (2020). Revealing the Decision-Making Processes of Chemical Engineering Students in Process Safety Contexts. Chemical Engineering Education. 54(1), 1-9.
• Butler, B., Bodnar, C., Cooper, M., Burkey, D., Anastasio, D. (2019). Understanding the Moral Reasoning Process of Senior Chemical Engineering Students in Process Safety Contexts. Education for Chemical Engineers. 28, 1-12.
• Anastasio, D., Butler, B., Burkey, D., Cooper, M., Bodnar, C.A. (2019). Collaborative Research: Experiential Process Safety Training for Chemical Engineers. ASEE 2019 Annual Conference and Exposition, June 16-19, 2019. Tampa, Florida.

The two journal articles focus on our process safety instrument (similar to providing students with paper based scenarios) and the conference paper touches on the work we have done with the game.  Currently, we have additional publications under review that show interesting results of how the game compares to the process safety instrument that we would be happy to share with you at a later date once they are published.  Feel free to reach out to any of us if this interests you.

Thank you so much! 

These are really great points.  We have observed in our work results very similar to what you have mentioned in your post.  The great part about the game is that we are able to observe these shifts in behavior as students have to manage emotional attachments they form to other characters that you just don't see in a traditional scenario based exercise.

That's great to hear that you're able to meet your learning objectives in this way. I was especially struck by the woman in the video who said that she picked up on the different personalities of the characters. You all must have put some time into thinking about that aspect of the game. Very clever! It could be a way to engage some students that might not otherwise be as interested.

It is wonderful to hear that you enjoyed our video.  We purposely created the game so that within the interface the participant appears as if they are sitting at their desk and the only personal item present is a picture of their adopted daughter. As such, regardless of the participant's background, they can feel as if they are making the decisions within the context of the game environment.

We also tried to ensure a diverse cast of characters within the game itself providing opportunities for participants to gain exposure to a variety of individuals in their day to day interactions on the job.  

Thanks, Cheryl!

Thanks for sharing your perspective.  We did actually do this testing to compare students responses in these two types of environments.  We currently have a publication under review that discusses how students moral reasoning to prompts provided within a scenario based instrument (Engineering Process Safety Reasoning Instrument) shift when they are exposed to similar types of decisions in the context of the game.

The game is meant to provide an opportunity for discussion with students.  Our goal is not to tell students what type of decision is necessarily right or wrong, but rather to make them aware of the types of decisions they are making and associated impacts so they can bring this awareness with them when they transition to an industrial environment.

Thanks, and great question! We haven't specifically considered chemistry / biochemistry courses, but one of the most important things we've learned in this work is the measurable difference between ethics (i.e. what is the most morally-justified choice) and behavioral ethics (i.e. what people actually do when the "chips are down" and a decision needs to be made in a stressful environment). This difference is covered with wonderful nuance in the book "Blind Spots" by Bazerman and Tenbrunsel. Our impetus for developing the digital environment is that it's challenging to train/evaluate peoples' decision making through a behavioral ethics lens, particularly in the classroom since students know they're being evaluated on the ethics of their decisions during a classroom exercise and so err on the side of being ethical. However, by immersing them in the narrative arc contained in the virtual environment and providing incentives and disincentives for every decision (regardless of whether ethics are involved in the decisions or not), it seems students forget they're being evaluated and reveal their real decision making tendencies. With this in mind, a classroom exercise that allows some kind of "practice field" for students to try out decision making in a realistic environment would be ideal - this strategy is called preauthentication in the literature if you're interested in learning more.

Thanks Matthew. This is fascinating. Thanks for the keywords, and I'm going to read up on it. In the meantime, I've started the safety training myself now (it's awesome that the title of your video in the presenter info in the upper right links directly to the training), and I'm already learning a lot. Even without a background (yet) in moral vs. behavioral ethics, I can see how valuable it must be to push student learning and thinking forward.

Glad you're enjoying it, Hannah! We've made Contents Under Pressure available during the STEM For All video showcase, but it will be unavailable afterwards. Thanks for giving it a try!

Thanks Jessica! I agree that it's important to pay attention to student perspectives when trying out a new teaching tool - students often provide valuable insight into challenges and benefits the instructors had never considered when developing the tool.

Thanks Anant! While the game is designed specifically to model process safety decision making, there is often significant overlap between process safety decision making and ethical decision making. As the game expands and we continue development, we can anticipate expanding the types of decisions students or players have to make.

Thank you for your positive feedback Robert.  The students do get an automatic summary once they have completed the game with a conclusion to the story and their final points based on how they performed in each of the three areas (safety, reputation, and productivity).  However, we do encourage faculty involved with implementing the game to include discussion with their students after the game has been completed as there are many interesting points that can be raised which are helpful to the class as a whole.

Anant, thank you for your post.  I think that you may have accidentally responded to Robert in the wrong location (it appears Robert may have also posted a question about your video).  I just wanted to let you know so that you could copy your response to your video discussion forum so that he would be aware of it.