Virtual Agent Approach for Teaching the Collaborative Problem Solving Skill of Negotiation.

Collaborative Problem Solving(CPS) skills are increasingly needed for the future of work. However, most programs do not offer opportunities for students to develop such skills. A recent assessment of students’ ability to solve problems collaboratively showed a significant global deficit. Previous research suggests that virtual agents are a promising tool for providing training on interpersonal skills, which is a crucial aspect of CPS. We believe that virtual agents can be adapted to teach specific CPS skills. However, there are still unanswered questions about the effectiveness of using virtual agents to train individuals on CPS, particularly in relation to teaching specific interpersonal skills. In this paper, we demonstrate how virtual agents can be used to teach the CPS skill of negotiation effectively. To do this, an online course was created using virtual agent based role-playing partners to teach the CPS skill of negotiation. Results show that participants who received instruction and feedback were able to think more globally about the negotiation and shift from focusing on improving outcomes of one issue towards making trade-offs across other issues of interest. These findings suggest that virtual agents have promise for teaching CPS skills. Our approach could be extended to teach other specific CPS skills using virtual agents.