Abstract
April 2016 Issue
Martijn C. Koops, Ineke Verheul, Rinus Tiesma, Cees-Willem de Boer & Ruben T. Koeweiden
Learning Differences Between 3D vs. 2D Entertainment and Educational Games
Willy C. Kriz and Eberhard Auchter
10 Years of Evaluation Research into Gaming Simulation for German Entrepreneurship and a New Study on its Long-term Effects
Joseph Wolfe
Assuring Business School Learning with Games
Silke Geithner & Daniela Menzel
Effectiveness of Learning Through Experience and Reflection in a Project Management Simulation
Christophe Le Page, Anne Dray, Pascal Perez and Claude Garcia
Exploring How Knowledge and Communication Influence Natural Resources Management With ReHab
June 2016 Issue
Marcin Wardaszko
Building Simulation Game-based Teaching Program for Secondary School Students
Ulrich Wechselberger
Music Game Enjoyment and Natural Mapping Beyond Intuitiveness
Christian K. Karl
Investigating the Winner’s Curse Based on Decision Making in an Auction Environment
Heide Lukosch, Shalini Kurapati, Daan Groen & Alexander Verbraeck
Proposing Microgames for Situated Learning: A Case Study in Interdependent Planning
Jop van den Hoogen, Julia C. Lo & Sebastiaan A. Meijer
Debriefing Research Games: Context, Substance and Method
As guest editors we had the pleasure of creating a two-issue symposium based on the best paper nominees associated with the International Simulation And Gaming Association’s
Although split into two Simulation & Gaming issues, as a whole these articles represent the best and soul of ISAGA’s mission and focus. They were selected from a total number of ninety-seven conference papers. After going through the conference’s original blind review process and two-three additional blind reviews at the symposium level, the editorial process (supported also by Timothy C. Clapper and J. Tuomas Harviainen) has resulted in a set of ten articles that have been heavily edited, enhanced and augmented with new material. All exhibit a drive for practicality or application for the accomplishment of serious or meaningful ends while basing the accomplishment of those ends through the use and respect for the theory and research on each article’s objectives.
Our first April 2016 symposium article features a rigorous examination of what’s new regarding active gaming interfaces. Koops, Verheul, Tiesma, de Boer and Koeweiden test the degree of today’s more eye-appealing and glittering three-dimensional game interfaces and how they might produce higher learning levels than those interfaces that present mundane-looking two-dimensional representations. It is certainly important to obtain a game player’s engagement, and more color, brighter animation, and more-realistic representations may attract users and purchasers of such simulations. However, all this could easily be so much eye candy and ephemeral in nature. The long-term objective of those who want to use simulations for meaningful ends must examine whether the third dimension examined by these authors adds educational value to the experience.
The next two articles, first by Kriz and Auchter and then by Wolfe, deal with the degree that game-based education produces real-world results. Both studies are longitudinal in nature and therefore benefit from their ability to take a long-term view of the results from multiple studies. In the case of the Kriz and Auchter article, one witnesses the evolution of an entrepreneurship education program for German university students that concludes with an overall evaluation of the program’s effectiveness with especial insights into the role that gender plays for accomplishing entrepreneurial results. The Wolfe article also addresses game-based education efforts at the collegiate level. By using the same simulation over a wide range of institutions in different locations over time, the article addresses a number of the inadequacies and criticisms of past evaluation research.
Geithner and Menzel’s article provides a nice transition from the world of business-oriented games to the world of debriefing and reflecting upon the processes of experiential-based education. During the early years of experiential learning one often heard that the play is the thing. This assumption was based on the novelty of the experience, as opposed to the stultifying effects of teacher-oriented lecture methods, or that productive synergisms manifestly come about through play and activity. The articles by Kriz and Auchter, and then by Wolfe, found that effects differed by gender and the willingness to become engaged in the experience. In the case of Geithner and Menzel, LEGO® Serious Play® was used to model the site location decision and the setup of a new plant in China. Through reflection, the study’s participants expressed higher levels of self-perceptions about their skill levels.
This issue’s last article is a land-use experiment conducted by Le Page, Dray, Perez and Garcia. The authors summarize the results of participant discussions drawn from those participating in ReHab, an online accessed natural resources management experience. Players assumed the roles of either Harvesters or Rangers. They compete in a landscape that can yield highly-profitable biomass but is also the breading space for a protected migratory Bird. An analysis of the communications of 620 players in 45 sessions conducted since 2008 revealed that while communication improved the outcomes for both the Harvesters and Rangers, and they were able to create and articulate rational-sounding decisions. These decisions were based on limited or an even flawed understanding of the rules. The public policy-making implications of their experience indicate that such situations require overall land-use management when it comes to supervising natural resources and settling trade-offs between natural resource preservation and economic progress.
The symposia’s June 2016 issue is more eclectic in nature. This issue’s first article by Wardaszko continues ISAGA’s interest in creating secondary education simulation experiences for business. While the previous issue’s article by Kriz and Auchter dealt with university experiences over time with this target playing group, Wardaszko details the steps and the nuts and bolts needed to insure that what was created met the Polish Ministry of National Education’s needs to provide the country’s high school students with a basic knowledge and practicum in the fields of economics and business. The article is very detailed on the role of demand and econometric modelling, game scenario design, and the creation of appropriate teaching program materials and indicates the high interface that is needed to insure that a valid and realistic simulation has been created.
Wechselberger’s article is also about simulation design and structure in nature, but interestingly, it examines the enjoyment associated with using the very popular and instrument-shaped Guitar Hero controller to play the guitar. The concept and the role of natural mapping and experience enjoyment was tested by having matched pairs of students play the open source Frets on Fire music game at three difficulty levels with actual guitars vs. Guitar Hero. The article’s post hoc analysis suggests that enjoyment associated with using a natural controller, such as the one used in this study, is not the source of the experience’s enjoyment and that the interaction between the role of the simulation and an identification with attractive roles, act as sources for game enjoyment and natural mapping.
In a sense, the next article by Karl also deals with the source of enjoyment in a simulation experience. This time, however, enjoyment can be associated with the curse of a group or players or a learner being cursed by winning a game’s round, or the entire game itself, through using a low-price/low-cost strategy in economic-based simulations. In this article, case contract bids in the construction industry were tested using four different auction methods. The results of using each method caused different sequential decisions and behavioral attitudes towards future risks. Although the approach taken in this article directly makes a contribution in the fields of decision making, it could also be generally applied to competitive business games. Debriefings may be used that may explain interconnections and make such interdependencies more understandable to their players.
Lukosch, Kurapati, Groen and Verbraeck’s article tests the validity of a short computer-based game. The game in this case is YARD CRANE SCHEDULER, a transportation and logistics experience. Games such as these can be implemented and debriefed in a very short time yet still enable learning to occur. More importantly, they are topic-related and can emphasize specific points in education and management development programs. The author’s found that the game used in this study, and the concept of using small microgames, was a valid tool because it fostered a cognizance of the interdependence of planning tasks. Simultaneously, the authors warned that the time constraints occasioned by such an approach can limit the use of any debriefings.
Finally, the last article by van den Hoogen, Lo and Meijer, as in the article by Geithner and Menzel, addresses the importance of reflection or debriefing as part of the gaming experience. However, the particular focus of this article is given to the debriefing literature’s lack of consideration regarding the need to collectively debrief and the ability to assess the validity, reliability and robustness of a research study’s causal claims. Although the debriefing guidelines offered are applied to research-based situations, they can also be applied to experience-based situations across many types of applications.
Simulation & Gaming appreciates the contribution of these ten articles and the perseverance of the authors and reviewers during the intense review process.