The Educational Effectiveness of Simulation Games.

A Strategy of Decision: Policy Evaluation As a Social Process.

Simulations and games provide three levels of learning: through participating, debriefing and writing. While taking part in the simulation; the participant experiences different types off acts, emo...

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Three levels of learning in simulations: participating, debriefing, and journal writing

This article examines the state of assessment in simulation and gaming over the past 40 years While assessment has come slowly to many disciplines, members of the simulation and gaming community have been assessing the educational effectiveness of their experiential activities for years, in part because of skepticism from more traditional quarters that gaming and simulation are appropriate techniques to use in the classroom These past efforts to demonstrate educational value usually went by names other than âassessmentâ This article reviews research published in this journal using the keyword âassessmentâ plus a sample of pre-1990 meta-studies on evidence of educational effectiveness The authors conclude with a discussion of two games, one familiar (SIMSOC) and one new (GLOBAL JUSTICE GAME) that may assist the reader in thinking about assessment strategies and related issues that need to be considered, in particular the role of agency versus structure

Assessment in Simulation and Gaming

The Educational Effectiveness of Simulation Games: A Synthesis of Findings

Verstehen, Cognition, and the Impact of Political Simulations: It is Not as Simple as it Seems.

Teaching American Government with Games

The most common role descriptions for professional policy analysts may be described as “problem solving” models, these models assume that most policy issues are essentially technical problems which can be solved through professional expertise. This paper outlines an alternate advocacy analysis model which assumes that many policy problems are matters of competing self interests and that analysts will often be sought to provide the strongest possible case for a client's preference. It also reviews questions of feasibility, credibility, appropriate training, and ethics for an advocacy analysis profession.

An advocate role model for policy analysis

A number of proposals for improvement of public policy-making call for the development of a professional group which blends technological skills, humanistic goals, and a sense for practical politics. This article suggests that several very different professional roles may be appropriate to different public policy areas. These differing roles suggest varying degrees of professional power over policy-making, different professional ethical standards, and lead to questions of the feasibility of developing a single profession to encompass all of policy analysis.

John L. Foster

Papers

Verstehen, Cognition, and the Impact of Political Simulations: It is Not as Simple as it Seems.

Teaching American Government with Games

An advocate role model for policy analysis

Professional Models for Policy Analysis

Change in Public Bureaucracies . By Marshall W. Meyer. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1979. Pp. ix + 251. $19.95.)