Excellent choice design will increase the engagement of your learners in the story, intrigue them about consequences and entice them to replay to check out other paths.

Choices in branching scenarios consist of three closely interconnected parts:Framing: the information the learner uses to make the choiceOptions: the possible choicesOutcomes: what happens due to choosing one of the options.

Choices can offer diverse acceptable ways to achieve the same goal, giving learners opportunity to personalise the experience.

An extra path can also replace boring “try again” situations: the consequence shows your choice was not ideal, but you simply continue and get another chance further in the story to make a better informed, similar choice.

Clear and confined parameters help to make the choice feel integral to the context, while still leaving room for personal expression and emotional connection.

One of my favourite narrative designers, Jon Ingold from Inkle Studios, introduced the accept – reject – deflect model. For example, in a conversational choice where someone asks you a question, this could mean the following:Accept: continue the current conversation, e.g. simply answer the questionReject: react negatively or refuse to answer. Deflect: change the topic, e.g. ignore, bounce a question back or refocus attention

Scenarios can be implemented in actual simulations (where the world is actively modeled, and the consequences are calculated), or in branching scenarios where the relationships are hard-coded in the consequences attached to a decision.

scenarios give us contextualized practice, which research shows leads to better retention and transfer. With the right choices, the scenario is engaging and provides meaningful practice, which leads to acquiring new abilities.

<div data-breakout="normal"><p class="-Zro6 -ZADH IjV6v AnCKd _57WYp" id="viewer-avnma"><span class="d0767"><span style="font-weight:700"><span>DAN: What makes learning through a simulation experience unique and meaningful?</span></span></span></p></div><div type="paragraph" data-hook="rcv-block26"></div><div data-breakout="normal"><p class="-Zro6 -ZADH IjV6v AnCKd _57WYp" id="viewer-d53db"><span class="d0767"><span style="font-weight:700"><span>CLARK</span></span><span>: As above, research says that contextualized practice (with feedback) is the best way to develop new abilities. They need to have a ’story’ setting: a context, then something happens that precipitates the need for a decision, and then the decision has consequences. That’s just a better-written multiple-choice question (please!), but if we drive the outcomes from a branching or simulation basis, this can lead to new decisions (they travel in packs!)</span></span></p></div>

Stories may be easier to remember and comprehend than essays because stories resemble our everyday experiences (Bruner, <a href="#CR10" rid="CR10" class=" bibr popnode" role="button" aria-expanded="false" aria-haspopup="true">1986</a>; Graesser et al., <a href="#CR39" rid="CR39" class=" bibr popnode" role="button" aria-expanded="false" aria-haspopup="true">1991</a>). People experience life in the real world as temporally ordered causal events, organized around personal goals, with the encountering and overcoming of obstacles to these goals resulting in emotional experiences; this parallels the structure of stories (Graesser, McNamara, &amp; Louwerse, <a href="#CR37" rid="CR37" class=" bibr popnode" role="button" aria-expanded="false" aria-haspopup="true">2003</a>; Graesser, Singer, &amp; Trabasso, <a href="#CR38" rid="CR38" class=" bibr popnode" role="button" aria-expanded="false" aria-haspopup="true">1994</a>).

Familiarity with the structure and content of a text is referred to as relevant “prior knowledge” (Dochy, Segers, &amp; Buehl, <a href="#CR28" rid="CR28" class=" bibr popnode" role="button" aria-expanded="false" aria-haspopup="true">1999</a>), and stories might be more memorable and comprehensible thanks to readers having greater prior knowledge.

Readers are less likely to benefit from prior knowledge while reading an essay, relative to stories, and are therefore less likely to benefit from easy inferences. This combination could easily put expository texts at a disadvantage when it comes to memory and comprehension (Coté, Goldman, &amp; Saul, <a href="#CR18" rid="CR18" class=" bibr popnode" role="button" aria-expanded="false" aria-haspopup="true">1998</a>; McNamara, <a href="#CR68" rid="CR68" class=" bibr popnode" role="button" aria-expanded="false" aria-haspopup="true">2004</a>).

A final reason to believe that narratives may be more memorable than expository texts hinges on the ability of emotions to facilitate memory (Hamann, <a href="#CR42" rid="CR42" class=" bibr popnode" role="button" aria-expanded="false" aria-haspopup="true">2001</a>). Affectively charged recollections have been dubbed “flash-bulb” memories, to communicate the idea that emotional events are deeply imprinted on the mind, like a flash aiding photography (Winograd &amp; Neisser, <a href="#CR107" rid="CR107" class=" bibr popnode" role="button" aria-expanded="false" aria-haspopup="true">1992</a>). This emotional facilitation of memory appears to result from a prioritizing of emotional material when it comes to attention and perception (Brosch, Pourtois, &amp; Sander, <a href="#CR9" rid="CR9" class=" bibr popnode" role="button" aria-expanded="false" aria-haspopup="true">2010</a>), with personal relevance playing a key role (Levine &amp; Edelstein, <a href="#CR58" rid="CR58" class=" bibr popnode" role="button" aria-expanded="false" aria-haspopup="true">2009</a>). To the extent that stories are better able to evoke strong emotions than expository texts (cf. Mar, Oatley, Djikic, &amp; Mullin, <a href="#CR62" rid="CR62" class=" bibr popnode" role="button" aria-expanded="false" aria-haspopup="true">2011</a>), we would expect stories to be better recalled than exposition.

Our primary research question was whether memory and comprehension differ for narrative versus expository texts. Our three-level random-effects meta-analysis of 150 effect-sizes found that, on average, memory and comprehension of narrative texts was superior to that for expository texts.

Our meta-analysis of 150 effect-sizes (from over 75 unique samples and more than 33,000 participants) found that people had an easier time comprehending and recalling narrative texts compared to expository ones. The average magnitude of this effect was more than a half a standard deviation, with a 95% CI ranging from just more than one-quarter to slightly more than three-quarters of a standard deviation. Moreover, this result appears to be robust, and not driven by any one particular effect-size or study. There was a great deal of variability in these effects, however, almost all of which represents true heterogeneity and not random sampling error. This variability originated primarily from differences between studies.

In closing, the totality of the evidence available finds that people have an easier time comprehending and recalling information presented in a story compared to that presented in an essay. This has potential implications for a number of disciplines, not least of which is the realm of education.

To that end, the advantage afforded to narratives over exposition in this domain should be considered whenever possible. We must emphasize, however, that these results should not be interpreted as a suggestion to force all information into a narrative form for pedagogical purposes, especially when such information is not typically presented in this way.

It is quite possible that mixed genres like narrative journalism, for example, could hold the key for leveraging the advantages of narrative–its ability to capture interest and communicate experience through imagination – to meet the goals of exposition to inform and educate (van Krieken &amp; Sanders, <a href="#CR102" rid="CR102" class=" bibr popnode" role="button" aria-expanded="false" aria-haspopup="true">in press</a>).

Based on over 75 unique samples and data from more than 33,000 participants, we found that stories were more easily understood and better recalled than essays. Moreover, this result was robust, not influenced by the inclusion of a single effect-size or single study, and not moderated by various study characteristics. This finding has implications for any domain in which acquiring and retaining information is important.

One way to go wrong is to have the choices that learners choose between to be statements, not choices of action. It’s easy to set up a scenario, particularly a mini-scenario with a story, but then ask learners to determine if something’s one of several ‘things’, such as categorizing the situation. It’s a nuance, but the choices should reflect what learners should do, e.g., with such a categorization. Do you then invoke practice X, or do action Y? Make sure you’re having learners make choices that do things, not just think things.

- Interactive Story: $15,000&nbsp;<br>Includes needs analysis, scripting for one 7 question interactive story, custom graphics and feedback documentation. <br><br>- Instructional Design Sprint: $7,500<br>One week intensive ID sprint - analysis, design, dev, revisions. For quick turnaround projects.

When it comes to scenario-based VR learning, the branched narrative is veiled behind the presence, immersion, and interaction within the VR environment. The learner may very well be subject to a predefined set of pathways, but because of the experiential nature of VR, these branches may not be as obvious because they’re seamlessly woven into the VR experience.

But the real value of interactivity doesn't lie in the number of physical interactions. It's about the depth of cognitive engagement these interactions can ignite.

Perhaps the perfect way to learn is by doing something worthwhile that lines up with the real world, and very judiciously receiving some friendly guidance when we get stuck.

If you’re running a flight simulator and want your pilots to learn how to land an airplane in a snowstorm, Short Sims can only have introductory benefits. They can teach you some of the strategies.

With practice, you should be able to create an entire role-play in about 40 hours over two weeks. If you are going over that, you’re probably overthinking or over-executing it. Remember that you need to keep it simple.

This study turns for guidance to the expertise of narrative designers for games, where storytelling for interactive narrative has a long history of testing, iterating and perfecting. A collection of proven techniques described by game narrative practitioners will inform creative writing efforts to craft prototypes to test the transferability of those techniques to interactive narratives in a healthcare education context.

So, first, let’s talk about the <a href="https://blog.learnlets.com/2018/11/making-multiple-choice-work/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">structure</a> of a mini-scenario. I’ve suggested that it’s an initial context or story, in which a situation precipitates the need for a decision. There’s the right one, and then alternatives. Not random or silly ones, but ones that represent ways in which learners reliably go wrong. There’s also feedback, which is best as story-based consequences first, then actual conceptual feedback.

Miniscenarios aren’t necessarily the best practice, but they’re typically available in your authoring environment. &nbsp;Writing them isn’t necessarily as easy as generating typical recognition questions, but they more closely mimic the actual task, and therefore lead to better transfer.