Lostness in a Building Construction Project Simulation

Abstract

This research paper studies the observed lostness in a building construction project simulation. The simulation has been built from scratch, to ensure the availability of all relevant information. Lostness is measured by comparing the choices participants make to the optimal choices available. While users play the simulation, their lostness is monitored and when participants (employees in the construction branch) in the study group consistently score low on a specific category of questions, such as Innovation, the simulation is adapted: they are presented with an additional crisis situation which is meant to raise awareness, improve their performance and decrease their lostness. However, the used threshold for the adaptivity appeared not to fit the skill deficiency measured, leading to a low number of users presented with crisis situations late in the simulation. This led to a lack of informative results for applying dynamic adaptivity. Different thresholds, or simply placing the crisis situations earlier, should yield a more optimal environment. This could be tested in follow-up research. However, interesting correlations have been found: for instance, a significantly positive correlation between Education and the Quality and Risk score, and a negative correlation between Education and Age. Finally, this thesis could function as a starting point for future research, providing a basis from which adaptations could be made.