The Approach:• Actively ‘driven’ by a human who ‘inhabits’ the avatars

• Characters and context reflect typical peers and

environments

• Some characters use peer pressure to encourage potentially

negative behaviors related to excessive drinking

• Human in the loop provides natural language interaction,

facilitating branching and adaptation of story line while

staying true to each character's personality/backstory

Virtual College LifeBringing On-line Alcohol Prevention Strategies to Life

PIs: Jennifer Epstein, Charles Hughes

The Goal:

• Use avatar-mediated interactive, personalized experiences to help college freshmen

develop protective strategies, for self and for others, to help reduce their problem

drinking and drunk driving

The Hypothesis :

• Those in treatment group will be more aware of hazards of alcohol and will be better

prepared to exercise protective strategies, thereby reducing binge drinking rates

Little sister meets friends and is invited to party

Results from Fall 2012 Formative Study

Drinks are offered Party in full swing Consequences & risks

“I would recommend to a friend”“… valuable for first-year college students”“… provides strategies to handle peer pressure”“… addresses consequences of binge drinking”

The simulation was believable, acceptable, fun and useful

Student assessment of experience

Why they liked it“Scenarios are believable”“… felt like real life”“… characters are realistic”“… fun and interesting”“… amazing technology”

Bottom line

Feedback from Spring 2013 Formative Study

2013 Large Scale StudyAll are straight out of high school entering as first-time-in-college students

All are required to take an online alcohol prevention course

Control group (those in on-line education but not Virtual College Life) and treatment group (those experiencing both) drawn from 2013 freshmen class

Each group will consist of 100 freshmen ages 18 and 19

Critical FeedbackExperience did not address driving while drunk strongly enough

Wanted more negative consequences related to drinking choices

Concluding message needed to more effectively address protective strategies

All of above points will be further explored in focus groups