Role-play exercises for project management education that incorporate a software agent

Role-play exercise is an effective method of teaching project management, in which each student concentrates on playing the role of a stakeholder defined in a virtual project to solve problems from the perspective of his/her role, sharing information in a timely fashion. This paper proposes the introduction of a software agent in on-line role-play exercises, to act as a mentor and provide appropriate hints to students. The analysis of the log data collected from role-play exercises based on the proposed method shows that the ratio of positive influence of the agent´s comments, which are designed to encourage students to take appropriate actions, on the students was 0.7, indicating that the agent´s comments are effective in guiding the students in the direction thought to be desirable by the instructor. A quantitative evaluation of the extent to which the students took desirable actions shows that the students who participated in a role-play exercise with the software agent present earned scores which were 74% better than those in a role-play exercise without the agent, confirming the effectiveness of the proposed role-play exercise method.