Sociologist Anne Zagt carries out longitudinal research, for the Personal Leadership & Innovative Strength professorship, focusing on finding the competences that underlie personal leadership.

“In Groningen I obtained my Master’s in Sociology, with a specialisation in health, care and welfare. Since 2014, I have worked as a researcher at the Personal Leadership & Innovative Strength professorship of NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences. My most important research subject is finding the competences that underlie personal leadership, which has included a pilot with a communication styles simulator.”

Stimulating education

“In order to be able to function successfully at a higher vocational education level, you need to have good communication skills. That’s why it’s necessary within higher vocational education to have effective methods to develop these skills among students. To what degree can new technological applications such as simulators and games help in education? Together with researcher Djoerd Hiemstra, I examine this question.”

“A commonly used argument for using simulators and games is that they are a stimulating form of education that fits in with the everyday experience of the current generation of students, the 'digital natives'. In order to gain more insight into the motivational effect of video role play simulations in higher vocational education, at NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences we carried out an extensive pilot with the ETU communication styles simulator. ETU stands for Empower The User, which means that the player himself determines the course of the scenario.”