The training
A training session takes a few minutes and runs like a phone call: students speak, the virtual simulated person answers in real time and stays in character, with its worries, its prior knowledge and its way of reacting.
How VirtualSP works
Choose a scenario
Students start one of the released scenarios, for instance explaining an X-ray report or a conversation with emotional parents.
Hold the conversation
They speak freely with the virtual simulated person, as in a phone call. The person answers in real time and stays in character.
Receive feedback
Immediately afterwards, the conversation is assessed along our competency framework, with quotes from the learner’s own conversation and recommendations for the next session.
Five dimensions of communication
Feedback follows a competency framework whose dimensions are derived from the formative MAAS 2.0 assessment instrument. Each dimension is assessed individually, justified and supported by a quote from the conversation.
- Structure
- Is the course of the conversation visibly steered? Are transitions announced, interim results summarised, shared understanding checked and a comprehensible conclusion set?
- Exploration
- Are the other person’s concerns, expectations and experience explored? Are their key words picked up until the actual reason for the encounter is understood?
- Relationship
- Are stated and implied feelings noticed, named and answered appreciatively — without interrupting?
- Information
- Is content conveyed in measured doses, comprehensibly and adapted to the other person’s level of understanding, and is it actively checked what has been understood?
- Decision
- Are options presented transparently, preferences and living circumstances taken into account, and the further course of action agreed together?
What students receive after the conversation
A rating for each dimension, each with a rationale and a verbatim quote from the learner’s own conversation
Concrete recommendations for the next training session, tied to specific phrasings
A competency profile that shows the learner’s development across all training sessions and compares it with a reference group
Example card from the feedback
Information: satisfactory
You translated the report into everyday language and explained it in small steps. You checked understanding once, but only at the end of the conversation.
„Radius ist die Speiche, einer der beiden Unterarmknochen. Distal heißt: nah am Handgelenk.“
For the next training session: Check understanding earlier, for example after the first technical term: “Which of this should I explain differently?”
A complement, not a replacement
Training with real simulated persons remains the core of communication education. It captures body language, relationship dynamics and immediate human reaction; no software can do that. VirtualSP comes before it: for the repetitions the course schedule has no room for, and for practising without an audience. Students arrive better prepared for their encounters with real simulated persons.
What VirtualSP makes possible
Unlimited repetitions
Training independent of place and time
Practising without listeners and without embarrassment
Immediate, criteria-based feedback
Traceable development over time