Presenting in Virtual Spaces: Students’ Experience in a Simulated Playable Case Study

In this article, we describe a preliminary study that explores the authenticity of a new brand of educational simulation. Below, we discuss how the authentic recreation of a presentation situation was experienced by students in an advanced professional communication class. During the simulation, students took the role of virtual city planners in a fictional mid-west town where they were asked to complete various tasks and interactions with different city planners and city board members. We used classroom observations along with pre- and post-test surveys to explore students’ acquisition of oral presentation skills and their use of isolated presentation competencies (Smith, 2010). Students and instructor responses to presenting in a simulated environment were positive. The opportunity to practice presenting to fictional stakeholders also included a disadvantage of pre-recorded questions for presenters to answer.