In a recent article, I explored the role virtual therapists might play in overcoming the chronic skills shortage in mental healthcare. Such virtual health apps are increasingly common, and while quality is hugely variable, there have been some early signs that some people are more comfortable divulging sensitive information to an avatar than they are to a real person.
The popular video game Minecraft may seem like an unusual place to conduct psychometric assessments, but as the most popular metaverse platform in the world, it’s something that researchers from Cambridge Judge Business School recently explored.
Virtual assessments
Minecraft has proven hugely successful, selling nearly 240 million copies globally. It’s probably not the first platform you think of when conducting a test of one’s cognitive abilities, however.
While there remains a degree of doubt over just how useful psychometric tests are, they’re nonetheless a common way of identifying our skills, knowledge, and personality. They typically come in forms that measure either our personality or our aptitude.
While many previous applications in the metaverse have attempted to replicate human staff with virtual avatars, the Cambridge research instead relies on the 3D worlds that are designed and simulated in Minecraft to test our abilities. In other words, they’re a potential complementary activity alongside more conventional assessments.
Game dynamics
“We have shown for the first time that Minecraft can be used as an assessment platform and that reasoning tests can be implemented in the three-dimensional game environment,” the researchers conclude.
What’s more, the researchers believe that the game environment is effective and participants are not unduly distracted by the engaging features that are central to the game. Indeed, these features seemed to make doing the assessments more enjoyable than via more traditional means.
They highlight that anxiety around the tests has long been identified as a problem in accurately gauging one’s true level. The engaging game-based environment of Minecraft can help to overcome this obstacle by making the assessments more enjoyable and relaxing.
