Making Social Skills Instruction Scale: A Conversation with VOISS Co-Founder Amber Rowland

Social skills are critical to student success in everything from peer relationships and mental health to the ability to access learning curricula. Role-play is an evidence-based tool to teach social skills, but it requires time and resources that many classrooms don't have. To address this gap and support educators and caregivers in providing social skills training in a safe environment, Amber Rowland, Ph.D., and her colleagues at the University of Kansas built VOISS, an extended reality platform that lets middle school-aged students practice social skills independently, freeing educators to extend their reach without adding to their workload.

Rowland is an Associate Research Professor at the University of Kansas' Center for Research on Learning and an educator with experience ranging from kindergarten to college classrooms. She specializes in practical, evidence-based professional learning for educators built around technology integration. In her role as VOISS Co-Founder and Co-Principal Investigator, Rowland studies how extended reality and artificial intelligence can help middle school students with autism and learning disabilities build social competency skills, and how best to support educators in helping students generalize those skills to the classroom. 

"My colleagues and I at the University of Kansas have spent the last 13 years building VOISS," Rowland says. "VOISS overcomes many systemic barriers. Students can play anytime, anywhere, at school, at home, or in the community. It is intuitive and multimodal, and it increases access to social skill learning without increasing staffing. VOISS is a scalable solution because it extends the reach of a limited workforce, reduces the burden on educators and providers, and lowers costs for families and systems.”

With an inventory of 180 social skills, VOISS offers a low-stakes practice environment that doesn’t require an educator to script and supervise every scenario. An integrated dashboard system enables educators, therapists, and caregivers to track a student’s social skill progress together through gameplay data.

In the conversation below, Rowland discusses the research behind VOISS and how it helps educators scale social skills instruction for the students who need it most.

How have you seen the need to develop social skills affect students and classrooms? 

Today, many students struggle to master essential social skills, which often manifest in various social settings. Some find it difficult to build or maintain friendships, while others face challenges working in groups. Some students inadvertently upset their peers by interrupting in class, and many are unsure how to navigate bullying in the hallways.

Furthermore, much of the school curriculum requires these skills to even access learning, whether through science labs, history presentations, or language studies. Fundamental abilities like active listening, turn-taking, offering respectful critiques, and managing executive functions are necessary for students to engage with content and demonstrate their knowledge.

Because of this, we recognize that social skills must be explicitly taught and practiced. While they were once considered part of a "hidden curriculum" that children were expected to pick up naturally, we now understand that many students, particularly those with disabilities, require direct instruction and deliberate opportunities to practice these competencies.

How have you seen practicing and improving social skills improve outcomes for students? 

By learning social skills and practicing in multiple social contexts, students gain confidence. They develop strategies for managing behaviors and situations. They learn to express themselves or control their impulses. This opens possibilities for them in school, at home, and in future workplaces and relationships. 

VOISS has been used by more than 3,000 students and 300 teachers. One of our VOISS clients is a charter school serving students with social skill needs, mainly those with Autism, who were unsuccessful in public schools and found they needed a context that focused on their needs. These students use VOISS for 20 minutes a day three to five times a week, learning and practicing the social skills they need to return to public school and/or be prepared for the future job market.

Many public schools offer VOISS during study blocks for students who may be nervous about hallway interactions, working as a team, or interacting with peers or adults. VOISS is also valuable for homeschool students who may have limited opportunities to interact with peers. VOISS offers a simulation where they can learn and practice in a safe space before employing their newly learned skills in real social situations.

Why did you and your colleagues develop VOISS as an interactive digital learning environment? What research/educational background went into the development of the platform? 

The best way to learn and practice social skills is to socially rehearse them. However, many students who struggle with social skills are also self-conscious about the impression they create in their interactions with others. They may worry about what the other person thinks of them while they’re practicing a specific skill, or they may worry about what a peer might tell others about them. Instead of focusing on practicing the new skill, they’re stressed out. Our brains struggle to learn when we’re stressed. 

We developed VOISS in an extended reality format because it removes the outside influence and gives students a safe place to learn and practice. Eventually, they still have to practice with other people in the real world, but our hope is that VOISS offers the opportunity to build their confidence in a virtual environment first.

The VOISS platform is specifically designed to enhance educators, therapists, and caregivers’ ability to support students. Can you share how that works?  

VOISS was built with middle school students and educators; thus, it is relevant and addresses real situations secondary students experience in social settings. For example, if you want to play basketball in our simulation, you can’t steal the ball and run to the other side of the gym, or you will make the avatars unhappy. Users must ask to join the game in a way that their peers would accept.

We developed VOISS using evidence-based practices of social narratives, direct instruction, and video-based modeling. Our social skill list of 180 skills is organized into 10 domains, and we offer 140 3- to 5-minute scenarios where students can practice those skills. The skills and scenarios were derived through a systematic expert review analysis of 25 common social skill assessments.

VOISS is designed to be personalized to the unique needs of each student using the Inventory. In the administrator dashboard, educators or caregivers can use the Inventory to determine a student’s social skills needs and the VOISS scenarios they need to play to address them. The dashboard system unites a student’s educators, therapists, and caregivers so they can track social skill progress together through gameplay data. VOISS Advisor is an implementation website with lesson plans and activities that can be done after a student learns and practices the skills in VOISS. Generalization of social skills is critical, and it too requires live practice. VOISS can be used to learn and practice, and VOISS Advisor can be used when students are ready to practice in the real world.

How have you seen VOISS influence educators’ ability to scale their work in the classroom? 

You may know someone like Oliver. Every day, he struggles with anxiety, bullying, and academics because he does not have the social skills he needs to be successful. He and his family are worried about his mental health, future relationships, and employment. 

The system itself is the constraint. Social skills are time-intensive and require a trained adult to teach. Role-play is an evidence-based practice for teaching social skills, but it requires educators to set up a whole scene with others, including educators and/or peers. This is why current solutions to social skill needs do not scale. We have a workforce shortage, especially in special education and behavior therapy. We also have an increase in the number of students being identified with social skills needs. With the demand for services increasing, many families, like Oliver’s, are having to spend thousands of dollars a year on therapy, medication, and alternative schooling. We have a high-cost, high-demand market with no scalable solution.

VOISS overcomes many systemic barriers. Students can play anytime, anywhere, at school, at home, or in the community. It is intuitive and multimodal, and it increases access to social skill learning without increasing staffing. VOISS is a scalable solution because it extends the reach of a limited workforce, reduces the burden on educators and providers, and lowers costs for families and systems. VOISS is built with evidence-based practice, and we have two randomized control trials that show that when students use VOISS, they increase social skill knowledge and practice. VOISS makes proven practice scalable.