ISPO: A Serious Game to train the Interview Skills of Police Officers

The training of Police Interview competencies relies on the hiring of actors to play the role of victims, witnesses and suspects. While role-play can be a particularly effective training technique, it requires a significant amount of resources. The Interview Simulation for Police Officers (ISPO) is a serious game developed as a collaboration of Gameware Europe with the Portuguese School of Police Officers. The objective of the game is to train police officers in communication competencies related to the interview of victims, witnesses, and suspects. Through ISPO, players can take the role of a police interviewer and practice the techniques and methodologies learned in theoretical classes. The serious game offers a safe, lightweight and easily repeatable experience. In order to evaluate the training effectiveness of the serious game, a study was con-ducted with 194 participants where general subjective learning effectiveness was mea-sured. Overall, the ISPO game improved the self-perceived competence of its players. Additionally, participants changed their opinion regarding the most valuable attitudes necessary to conduct a successful interview. Finally, the interaction with the game had a stronger effect on inexperienced users. These results lead us to believe that ISPO can be an added value to police officer schools.