Creating Simulations for Political Science Education

ABSTRACT

Simulations, particularly human-to-human interactions, offer social science students the opportunity to learn from firsthand experience, and can be an important and useful addition to an educator's teaching repertoire. However, it can be difficult for an instructor to know how to structure a simulation environment to meet specific educational goals. In this article, we suggest a pedagogical framework, focusing on the choice between educating students about process or content, for developing a social science simulation environment that promotes the desired learning objectives. We discuss time and technology limitations, and outline a number of structural considerations to help simulation designers as they develop their own simulations. Finally, we present a web-based tool to facilitate the creation of simulations (face-to-face or computer-mediated) based on the framework. We believe that the pedagogical structure and the virtual infrastructure will help those educators who would like to use simulations in their classrooms, but have not found any that suit their particular needs.

Keywords:

• simulation
• pedagogy
• political science
• Internet

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Alex Jonas, Jane Schmitt, Tim Wedig, and Kathie Young for their helpful comments, and simulation creators David Andersen, Jim Barry, Christopher Fettweis, Kathleen Rooney, and Tim Wedig for their creative ideas.

Notes

For more information about ICONS simulations, please visit http://www.icons.umd.edu

1. When we talk about simulations in this paper, we are referring to human-to-human interactions. While these may be mediated by a computer, computers are not themselves actors in the simulation. As such, what drives the simulation forward is the interaction among the participants, not, for the most part, external inputs.

2. Besides the Journal of Political Science Education, articles describing particular simulations and how they can be used are often found in PS, International Studies Perspectives and Simulation and Gaming.

3. This paper is intended to be a practical guide and does not contain a review of the extensive literature on educational international relations simulations. See Starkey and Blake (2001) or Asal (2005).

4. The “International System” simulation focuses on policy interactions among states in the international system on a variety of international issues. For more information about ICONS's university level simulations or to login to a demo simulation, see http://www.icons.umd.edu.

5. At the same time, we have expanded our ICONSnet simulation support software so that it can now be customized to support different kinds of interactions. Depending on the options selected by the simulation designer, participants can submit and vote upon proposals, take actions, file reports to reflect upon their participation and performance, and conduct brainstorming sessions.

6. Of course, the foreign policy simulation could be conducted at a single site, while the other exercises could link together participants at different locations.

7. For examples, view the “Resources” in the ICONS Globalization or International Whaling Commission simulation at http://www.icons.umd.edu/pls/staff/website.simulation_description?v_sim_type_id=17 or http://www.icons.umd.edu/pls/staff/website.simulation_description?v_sim_type_id =5.

8. Some ICONS simulations take advantage of an ICONSnet feature called “reports,” which allows instructors to have students answer a set of instructor-designed questions about what is happening during a simulation.

9. It is not always necessary to share your goals with students at the beginning of the simulation, but it should definitely be discussed during the debriefing to help participants put their experience in the proper context. In fact, you might not want to share the purpose if that might alter the way that students will behave in the simulation, and therefore undermine the learning objectives.

10. See http://www.icons.umd.edu/pls/staff/website.simulation_description?v_sim_type_id=5.

11. “Return of the Wolf,” designed to teach high school students about wildlife ecology, puts students in the role of a scientist investigating a declining wolf population in a national park. Users interact with a computer-based model, rather than with other students, as they attempt to solve the problem. The Institute for Learning Sciences at Northwest University has developed proprietary authoring tools to allow people to build prototype simulation systems.

12. For an example of how this simulation was used for research purposes, see Wilkenfeld et al. (2003, 2005).