Intelligent Tutoring for Ill-Defined Domains in Military Simulation-Based Training

This paper describes the role of simulation-based training in the military. Interviews and observations of military instructors in the damage control and shiphandling domains provide examples of how the instructors extend the student;s training beyond the well-defined simulated world with qualitative reasoning about context, hypothetical variants, and critical factors of the scenario. An intelligent tutoring system for a simulator can have a well-defined core area of domain knowledge, but to replicate more of the human instruction typically given in simulation-based training, the ITS should include a capability to deal with the ill-defined periphery of domain knowledge. Natural language interaction, including asking students open-ended questions about their performance, can help support tutoring of the ill-defined material.