Assessing the Distinctive Contributions of Simulation & Gaming to the Literature,1970-2019: A Bibliometric Review

Identification of Sources

The Scopus (2020) index is widely used in bibliometric reviews of research due to its capacity for exporting bibliographic data associated with a set of documents (Boyack et al., 2008). In this review the authors used the Scopus search engine to identify all articles published in Simulation & Gaming from 1970 to the end of 2019. The review followed the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) approach to reporting procedures used in the identification of the database of articles published in Simulation & Gaming (Moher et al., 2010).

Since Simulation & Gaming has used several journal titles at different points in its publication history, the authors employed multiple keyword combinations such as “simulation games”, “simulation and gaming” or “simulation and games”. This yielded a total of 2,148 documents. The authors retained ‘articles’ as well as ‘reviews’, which though shorter than articles, represent an important contribution of the Journal. Conference papers (411) were excluded leaving 1,737 documents in the Scopus list. Scopus filters were used to exclude 157 editorials, notes, errata, and letters further reducing the list to 1,580 documents. Next, the authors screened the list by reading the abstracts of the documents in order to further determine eligibility. This step led to the deletion of 153 duplicates, notes and editorials missed by the Scopus filters. The final list consisted of 1,427 research articles and reviews published in Simulation & Gaming from 1970 to 2019.

Data Analysis

The Scopus list was exported to an Excel file for storage and descriptive data analysis. This file consisted of meta-data associated with the Scopus list of 1,427 Simulation & Gaming articles. Prior to data analysis, the authors undertook a process of data disambiguation (Strotmann & Zhao, 2012). In bibliometric reviews, it is common for meta-data exported from a data repository to contain multiple expressions of the same term. For example, the list of authors included ‘Pray, T.’ and ‘Pray, T. F.’, and keywords included both ‘student’ and ‘students’. Without rationalizing these alternate expressions of the same data terms, bibliometric analyses would yield inaccurate results (Strotmann & Zhao, 2012).

In the first step, the master Excel file was uploaded into the VOSviewer software program (version 1.6.14), and preliminary analyses were conducted for the purpose of identifying problematic data terms. The authors used the results of these analyses to create a ‘thesaurus file’. This text file provides instructions used by VOSviewer during data analysis to replace ambiguous terms with a common term (van Eck & Waltman, 2013).

Several bibliometric analyses were used to gain insights into the nature and impact of the Simulation & Gaming publication corpus (Zupic & Čater, 2015). Excel 2013 and Tableau (Tableau, 2003-2019) software were used to analyze the geographical distribution of articles published in Simulation & Gaming.

Citation analysis, conducted in VOSviewer (1.6.14), was used to identify high impact authors and documents. In this review, citation analysis computed the number of times an author or document had been cited in other Scopus documents. Thus, these results are referred to as ‘Scopus citations’. Scopus citations are typically larger in magnitude than those obtained from the Web of Science, but smaller than Google Scholar totals due to differences in the size of the respective databases.

Whereas citation analysis highlights the impact of authors and documents published in Simulation & Gaming on the broader literature, co-citation analysis reveals ‘sources of influence on content published in the Journal’. Co-citation analysis tracks citations in the ‘reference lists’ of articles contained the review database (i.e., Simulation & Gaming) rather than citations that appear in Scopus-indexed documents. Thus, co-citation analysis offers a complementary perspective to traditional (Scopus) citation analysis. By way of example, in this review co-citation analysis found that Albert Bandura was often cited by authors of Simulation & Gaming articles. Despite his never having published an article in the Journal, Bandura’s contributions to social and cognitive learning theory (e.g., Bandura, 1989; Bandura & Schunk, 1981) have been frequently cited by authors of articles published in Simulation & Gaming (e.g., Garris et al., 2002; Klabbers, 2003; Thompson et al., 2010; Wilson et al., 2009).

A second feature of co-citation analysis used in this review lies in the ability to reveal ‘relationships between and among authors’ within a body of literature. In this function, co-citation analysis tracks the frequency with which any two authors have been ‘cited together’ in the reference lists of articles in the review database (Small, 1973). For example, assume that Garris et al.’s (2002) article in Simulation & Gaming cited Bandura (1989) and Kolb (1984) in its reference list. In this case, the co-citation software (i.e., VOSviewer) would award one ‘co-citation’ each to Bandura and Kolb, as well as a ‘link’, capturing their ‘connection’. Zupic and Čater (2015) asserted that, “A fundamental assumption of co-citation analysis is that the more two items are cited together, the more likely it is that their content is related (p. 431)”. This feature of co-citation analysis forms the basis of science mapping which seeks to reveal the relationships of authors (or documents or journals) within a field of study.

VOSviewer software uses matrices of author co-citations as the basis for creating network maps used to visualize similarities among authors within a field of study (van Eck & Waltman, 2014). These maps have been used in science mapping studies of disciplines or a single journal (Bragge et al., 2010; Hallinger & Wang, 2020; Zupic & Čater, 2015). In this review, author co-citation analysis was used to map the ‘schools of thought’ or research themes that represent the ‘intellectual structure’ of the Simulation & Gaming corpus (Börner et al., 2003; White & McCain, 1998).

Finally, keyword co-occurrence analysis (co-word analysis) was conducted in VOSviewer in order to explore topical patterns in the Simulation & Gaming corpus (van Eck & Waltman, 2014). Co-word analysis, which operates in a fashion analogous to co-citation analysis, tracks the frequency of ‘keyword occurrence’ and ‘keyword co-occurrence’ in the keywords, titles and abstracts of documents contained in the review database (van Eck & Waltman, 2014; Zupic & Čater, 2015). In their earlier review, Bragge et al. (2010) conducted a comprehensive analysis of the Journal’s topical evolution from 1970-2009. Therefore, this review focused on updating their findings by identifying the research front or hot topics that have emerged over the past 15 years in the Simulation & Gaming corpus (de Solla Price, 1965; Zupic & Čater, 2015).

Geographical Distribution of the Simulation & Gaming Corpus

The heat map in Figure 1 shows that Simulation & Gaming has achieved significant breadth of authorship. Analysis based on the national affiliation of ‘first authors’ of all S&G articles found that S&G contributions have been authored in 52 different countries. Moreover, longitudinal analysis also found that the Journal’s content has become increasingly international over the past 50 years (see Table 1). During its first three decades, the geographical breadth of authored content was quite limited, with authorship from only seven nations in the 1970s, 13 in the 1980s, and 21 in the 1990s (see Table 1). However, the past two decades have witnessed increasing geographical diversity with authors from 40 nations contributing articles during the 2000s and 39 between 2010 and 2019. Longitudinal analysis presented in Table 1 also shows a shift from an earlier dominance of American authors to more contributions from other countries.

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Figure 1.

The geographical distribution of publications in Simulation and Gaming, 1970-2019 (N = 1,427 documents). Map generated in Tableau software (Tableau, 2003–2020).

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Table 1.

Change in the Cultural Diversity of Authorship of Articles Published in Simulation & Gaming.

Decade	Total nations contributing to S&G	% of articles from USA	% of articles from A-A-E	% of articles from outside A-A-E
1970-79	7	88%	100%	0%
1980-89	13	80%	99%	1%
1990-99	21	75%	94%	6%
2000-09	40	47%	87%	13%
2010-19	39	36%	88%	12%
All decades	52	56%	90%	10%

A-A-E= Anglo American nations.

Nonetheless, data in Table 1 and Figure 1 also reveal the sparsity of contributions from emerging regions of the world. Although Asian scholars have begun to make notable contributions accounting for 8% of the full corpus (not tabled), contributions from Africa and South America have been few and far between. Notably, during the most recent decade the proportion of articles authored in these three ‘emerging regions’ represented 12% of the publication corpus (see Table 1).

Influential Authors in the Simulation & Gaming Corpus

In the context of a single journal, scholarly impact can be analyzed from several perspectives. Identification of highly-cited articles lends insight into specific publications that may have proposed new theories, produced ground-breaking findings, or consolidated prior scholarship (Zupic & Čater, 2015). Authors who publish multiple documents in a particular journal can be seen as active members of the journal’s scholarly community (Bragge et al., 2010). Authors who accumulate significant citations via their contributions to the journal have demonstrated high impact on the broader field (Garfield & Merton, 1979).

Simulation & Gaming’s top-cited articles are displayed in Table 2. Garris, Ahlers and Driskell’s (2002) article, “Games, motivation, and learning: A research and practice model”, is the most highly-cited paper published in Simulation & Gaming. The impact of this theoretical paper lies in its insightful analysis of the game-based learning process. More specifically, the paper proposed a theoretical model that links critical features of games with the instructional process and learning outcomes. It represents a seminal contribution to ‘gaming science’, which seeks to define the principles underlying the design of effective simulations and games (Bowers et al., 2013; Crookall, 2009, 2010; Klabbers, 2003, 2018; Landers, 2014; Landers & Landers, 2014).

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Table 2.

20 Most Highly Cited Documents Published in Simulation & Gaming, 1970-2019 (N=1,427).

Rank	Article	Type 1	Subject	Scopus citations
1	Garris et al. (2002). Games, motivation, and learning: A research and practice model.	Con	Learning Game Design	1,480
2	Gaba et al. (2001). Simulation-based training in anesthesia crisis resource management.	Con	Learning Healthcare	403
3	Randel et al. (1992). The effectiveness of games for educational purposes: A review.	Rev	Learn	389
4	Wilson et al. (2009). Relationships between game attributes and learning outcomes.	Rev	Learning	273
5	Kolb & Kolb (2009). The learning way: Meta-cognitive aspects of experiential learning	Con	Learning	195
6	Thompson et al. (2010). Serious video games for health: How behavioral science guided development of a video game.	Con	Healthcare Game Design	194
7	Gosen & Washbush (2004). A review of scholarship on assessing experiential learning effectiveness.	Rev	Learning	186
8	Lederman (1992). Debriefing: Toward a systematic assessment of theories and practice.	Con	Learning	183
9	Apperley (2006). Genre and game studies: Toward a critical approach to video game genres.	Con	Game Design	175
10	Ruben (1999). Simulations, games, and experience-based learning.	Con	Learning	174
11	Greenberg et al. (2010). Orientations to video games among gender and age groups.	Emp	Game Design Social Science	168
12	Sandler & Arce (2003). Terrorism & game theories.	Con	Game Design Social Science	167
13	Faria et al. (2009). Developments in business gaming: A review of past 40 years.	Rev	Business S/G	150
14	Kayes et al. (2005). Experiential learning in teams.	Con	Learning	146
15	Dörner (1980). On the difficulties people have in dealing with complexity.	Con	Social Science	143
16	Zagal et al. (2006). Collaborative games: Lessons learned from board games.	Rev	Game Design	138
17	Faria (1998). Business simulation games: Current usage levels - An update.	Emp	Business S/G	135
18	Mayer (2009). The gaming of policy and the politics of gaming: A review.	Rev	Game Design Social Science	134
19	Bedwell et al. (2012). Toward a taxonomy linking game attributes to learning.	Emp	Learning Game Design	132
20	Faria & Wellington (2004). A survey of simulation game users, former-users, and never-users.	Emp	Business S/G	125

1

Con=conceptual Emp=empirical; Rev=review S/G=simulations and games.

The authors employed Duke and Kemeny’s (1989) categorization scheme in order to classify the subject foci of these highly cited papers. Data in Table 2 suggest the inter-disciplinary nature of content published in Simulation & Gaming. Papers with a ‘learning’ focus in simulation/gaming appear prominently among the top-cited articles (e.g., Garris et al., 2002; Kolb & Kolb, 2009; Lederman, 1992; Ruben, 1999; Washbush & Gosen, 2001; Wilson et al., 2009). The use of simulation/games in business education is also highlighted in this table (e.g., Faria, 1998; Faria et al., 2009; Faria & Wellington, 2004). Similarly, scholarly interest in studies of game design are prominent within these highly cited documents (e.g., Apperley, 2006; Bedwell et al., 2012; Garris et al., 2002; Greenberg et al., 2010; Thompson et al., 2010; Zagal et al., 2006).

Next, VOSviewer was used to identify the authors who have contributed most frequently to Simulation & Gaming (see Figure 2). Joseph Wolfe, Pierre Corbeil, Ken Jones, Precha Thavikulvat, Anthony Faria and Jan Klabbers have been the leading contributors, each with 10 or more authored articles. However, examination of their respective article sets yielded contrasting patterns of contribution. While the majority of Jones’ and Corbeil’s contributions consist of short reviews (e.g., Corbeil, 1992) and commentaries (Jones, 1998), Wolfe, Thavikulvat, Faria, and Klabbers have tended to author full-length research articles (not tabled).

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Figure 2.

Most Frequent Contributors of Research Articles and Reviews to Simulation & Gaming, 1979-2019 (N=1,427).

This developing portrait of influential authors was extended by examining the citation impact of scholars with multiple publications in Simulation & Gaming (see Table 3). In order to reduce redundancy with Table 2, a minimum of two documents was used when generating data for Table 3. Indeed, it was the case that several highly-cited articles were co-authored by scholars with only a single publication in Simulation & Gaming (e.g., Garris, Ahlers, Driskell, Gaba, Fish, Howard, Randel, Sowb, Morris and others). Thus, for example, Garris and colleagues (2002) would also have been the top-cited authors if a threshold of one article had been used. This means that the author citation analysis in Table 3 should be interpreted in concert with data presented above in Table 2.

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Table 3.

Top-Cited Scholars Based Publishing Multiple Articles in Simulation & Gaming, 1970-2019 (Minimum of 2 Authored Articles).

Rank	Author	Domains/foci	Documents	Scopus citations	CPD 1
1	Anthony J. Faria	Business & Man/Sim & Gaming	12	684	57
2	Joseph Wolfe	Business & Man/Sim & Gaming	28	554	20
3	Eduardo Salas	Multiple Subjects/Sim & Gaming	3	493	164
4	David A. Kolb	Experiential Learning	5	451	90
5	Betty Whitehill	Learning/Military	2	423	212
6	Wendy Bedwell	Learning	2	405	203
7	Brian Smith	Learning Health Sciences	2	403	202
8	William Wellington	Business & Man/Sim & Gaming	6	314	52
9	Alice Kolb	Experiential Learning	2	244	122
10	John Washbush	Learning	4	243	61
11	Jerry Gosen	Learning	3	240	80
12	Richard N. Landers	Learning/Game Design	4	233	58
13	Igor Mayer	Social Sciences/Game Design	5	233	47
14	Debbe Thompson	Health Sciences/Game Design	3	204	68
15	Janice Baranowski	Video Games/Game Design	2	203	102
16	Tom Baranowski	Video Games/Game Design	2	203	102
17	Richard Budy	Video Games/Game Design	2	203	102
18	Linda C. Lederman	Learning Gaming	6	198	33
19	Jan H. G. Klabbers	Game Design/Sim & Gaming	11	196	18
20	Wily C. Kriz	Business & Man/ Game Design	3	196	65

1

CPD=citations per document.

In Table 3, ‘Scopus citation count’ only reflects citations accrued from an author’s articles published in Simulation & Gaming. For example, David Kolb’s five articles published in Simulation & Gaming have accrued 451 Scopus citations. However, through 2019, Kolb’s full corpus of Scopus-indexed publications consisted of 30 documents which had gained 3,891 citations. With this guideline in mind, the Scopus citation counts in Table 3 are quite respectable for an education journal. By way of comparison, if the two top-cited papers are discounted, the Scopus citation impact of highly-cited articles published in Simulation & Gaming is on a par with other respected education journals such as Teachers College Record, Harvard Educational Review, and the Academy of Management Learning & Education.

Scopus citation analysis further highlights the impact of Anthony Faria, Joseph Wolfe, Eduardo Salas, and David Kolb. Anthony Faria’s position at the top of this table recognizes his long-term efforts to chart the development of simulation/gaming in research and practice (Faria, 1998, 2001; Faria et al., 2009; Faria & Wellington, 2004, 2005; Wellington et al., 2017). Joseph Wolfe represents, arguably, the intellectual pioneer of the modern literature on simulation and gaming. His articles published in Simulation & Gaming have focused on unpacking the principles of effective simulation design (Wolfe, 1991), documenting the use of simulations in business education (Wolfe, 1997; Wolfe & Bruton, 1994; Wolfe & Chanin, 1993), and monitoring the evolution of simulation/gaming as a field of study (Wolfe, 1993, 1994, 1995; Wolfe & Crookall, 1998). Eduardo Salas’ contributions to Simulation & Gaming represent only a small portion of his broader contributions to the inter-disciplinary literature on simulation/gaming (Hallinger & Wang, 2020). His articles published in Simulation & Gaming have focused on conceptual and measurement issues concerning the relationship between simulation-based learning and student learning (Bedwell et al., 2012; Salas, Rosen, et al., 2009; Wilson et al., 2009). David Kolb’s inclusion among Simulation & Gaming’s top-cited scholars acknowledges the impact of his conceptualizations of experiential and team learning to the literature on simulation/gaming (Kayes et al., 2005; Kolb et al., 2014; Kolb & Kolb, 2009).

A striking result in Table 3 is the prominence of a ‘learning’ focus among the Journal’s most highly cited authors (Gosen & Washbush, 2004; Kolb et al., 2014; Kolb & Kolb, 2009; Landers, 2014; Lederman, 1984; Ruben & Lederman, 1982). The emergence of ‘game design’, also known as gamification and gaming science, also emerges from Table 3 as a significant focus among the Journal’s top-cited scholars (e.g., Klabbers, 2003, 2006, 2018; Landers, 2014; Thompson et al., 2010; Zagal et al., 2006; Zagal & Mateas, 2010). The subject focus among scholars represented in Table 3 suggests the prominence of ‘business and management education’ in the content of Simulation & Gaming. This contrasts for example, with healthcare in which Thompson was the only scholar with sufficient citations to meet the threshold used in Table 3 (e.g., Thompson et al., 2010). Notably, if Table 3 had been extended to include the 50 top-cited authors and a threshold of one document, the only additional health care scholars added to the list would have been Gaba, Fish, Howard, Lashley and Nehring.

Intellectual Structure of Simulation & Gaming

In this section, author co-citation analysis was used in order to reveal the intellectual structure of the knowledge base embedded in the Simulation & Gaming corpus (van Eck & Waltman, 2014). The authors created an author co-citation map in VOSviewer using a threshold of at least 35 author co-citations. Figure 3 displays relationships among the 107 authors most frequently cited in the reference lists of articles published in Simulation & Gaming.

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Figure 3.

Author Co-citation Map of the Literature Published in Simulation & Gaming, 1970-2019. Map generated in VOSviewer (van Eck & Waltman, 2020) with a threshold of 35 citations and display of 107 authors.

Interpretation of the co-citation map highlights patterns of influence and relationship. Scholarly influence is reflected in the size of the nodes; larger nodes indicate higher citation frequency in the reference lists of Simulation & Gaming articles. Relationships are reflected in the scope and density of ‘links’ between authors. Authors with more ‘links’ can be interpreted as having a broader scope of influence. ‘Proximity’ of authors to one another on the map suggests the level of intellectual affinity between specific authors. Authors located in close proximity typically evidence a stronger degree of conceptual similarity in their published works. Finally, colors on the map highlight schools of thought’ that comprise the intellectual structure of the corpus.

The map in Figure 3 reveals three schools of thought in the knowledge base represented by Simulation & Gaming publications. The largest school of thought (red cluster) consists of authors associated with Simulation/Gaming Theory. This school is led by David Crookall, Richard Duke, David Kolb, and Jan Klabbers. Scholars located in this school have conceptualized and applied experiential learning theories as a means of explaining how and why simulations and games produce learning retention and transfer (Crookall, 2010; Crookall & Thorngate, 2009; Duke, 1980; Klabbers, 2000, 2003, 2018). This school has, over time, elaborated what Klabbers (2018) referred to as the “architecture of game science” (p. 207). The size and central position of this school of thought suggest its importance in the intellectual structure of the Simulation & Gaming corpus.

The Simulation/Gaming Theory school in Figure 3 not only includes simulation/gaming theorists, but also theorists on whose work these scholars have drawn. Thus, for example, this school of thought also includes learning theorists such as Simon, Guetzkow, Kahneman, and Schön who are associated with organizational decision-making and learning processes (e.g., Argyris & Schön, 1997; Guetzkow & Simon, 1955). Simulation/gaming scholars have also applied cognitive and social learning theories to refine their models of simulation and game-based learning (Brown et al., 1989; Dewey, 1986; Kolb, 1984; Piaget, 2003; Shayer, 2003; Vygotsky, 1980).

The second largest school (green cluster) is comprised of scholars who have focused on Simulation and Game Design. Key scholars in this school include Eduardo Salas, Rosemary Garris, J.A. Cannon-Bowers, Robert Ahlers, Richard Driskell, and Kurt Squire. They have drawn on social-cognitive learning theories (e.g., Bandura, 1989; Bandura & Schunk, 1981) to elaborate design principles used in developing and evaluating simulation/gaming (e.g., Cannon-Bowers & Bowers, 2009; Duke, 1980; Gaba et al., 2001; Garris et al., 2002; Salas, Rosen, et al., 2009). This has led to the exploration of how motivational concepts such as learner engagement and flow can be applied to learning through simulations and games that provide an ‘immersive experience’ for learners (Barlett et al., 2009; Csikszentmihalyi & Csikszentmihalyi, 1992; Kiili et al., 2014; Prensky, 2006). Notably, this school includes a technological focus which reflects the efforts among its scholars to elaborate how these design principles can be productively applied to computer simulations and online games (e.g., Apperley, 2006; Bethards, 2014; Cannon-Bowers & Bowers, 2009; Klopfer & Squire, 2008; Landers, 2014; Landers & Landers, 2014).

The third school of thought (blue cluster) is comprised of scholars who have studied the use of Simulations and Games in Business and Management Education. Led by Joseph Wolfe, Anthony Faria, Precha Thavikulwat, and Steven Gold, scholars in this school have documented the application of simulations and games in management education (Faria, 1976, 1987; Keys, 1997; Wolfe, 1976, 1991, 1997). They have also studied the design, use and effects of simulation/gaming with a particular focus on business management (Gold & Pray, 2001; Keys & Wolfe, 1990; Thavikulwat, 2004; Wellington et al., 2017; Wolfe, 1997; Wolfe & Chanin, 1993). The emergence of this school on the map suggests the prominent role that management scholars have played in authoring content for Simulation & Gaming.

Topical Foci of the Educational Simulation/Gaming Articles in Simulation & Gaming

Next, a temporal co-word map was generated in VOSviewer (see Figure 4). In this analysis, VOSviewer constructs a distribution of the publication dates of documents associated with each keyword. The mean year of a temporal distribution will vary depending upon when studies related to a given keyword have been most ‘popular’. VOSviewer inspects these distributions and assigns a color which is reflects time period in which the keyword has been most popular. Thus, in Figure 4 a keyword with a yellow/light shade node will have a distribution centered in the most recent period of the review. However, because the distribution of dates for a keyword can extend back many years, the distribution is seldom centered in either the first or last few years of the review. Thus, the legend on the co-word map shows a range of distribution peaks from 2002 to 2012.

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Figure 4.

Temporal Overlay on a Keyword Co-occurrence Map for Simulation & Gaming articles, 1970-2019. Map generated in VOSviewer (van Eck & Waltman, 2020) using a threshold of 7 co-occurrences and a display of 116 keywords.

The research front in research featured in Simulation & Gaming lies in three areas. First, several keywords highlight the growing emphasis on understanding how simulations and games provide a context for Active Learning. This cluster includes keywords such as active learning, engagement, flow, participation, collaboration, collaborative learning, role play games, and immersion (Goetze, 2015; Kolb et al., 2014; Landers & Landers, 2014; Westlin, Day, & Hughes, 2019). A second research front centered on Games (e.g., gamification, gaming simulation, instructional design, game design) which reprises a school of thought in the author co-citation map (Clapper, 2014; Klabbers, 2018; Landers, 2014; Landers & Landers, 2014; Lukosch et al., 2018; Thompson et al., 2010). Not only are these topics of recent interest, but the larger nodes associated with gamification and game design also indicate greater strength of interest. A third research front lies in Technology Enhanced Simulations and Games. Related keywords include technology, digital games, virtual learning environment, and video games (Almousa et al., 2019; Cannon-Bowers & Bowers, 2009; Katsaliaki & Mustafee, 2015; Ledoux et al., 2016; Meijer, 2015). Finally, the map suggests increasing interest in simulations and games that focus on Sustainability (Blanchard & Buchs, 2015; Crookall, 2013; Goetze, 2015; Katsaliaki & Mustafee, 2015; Sterman et al., 2015). Related keywords include climate change, complex systems, and adaptation.

Limitations

Two limitations require explicit discussion. First, this review was based solely on content published in Simulation & Gaming. Therefore, findings cannot be generalized to the full knowledge base on simulation/gaming. This limitation is, nonetheless, consistent with the goal of the review which sought to unpack Simulation & Gaming’s distinctive contribution to the broader knowledge base.

A second limitation lies in the nature of the quantitative method used to analyze the Simulation & Gaming corpus. This review neither evaluated the quality of individual studies, nor their findings. Thus, the findings gained from bibliometric analysis should be interpreted as complementing those obtained from earlier efforts (e.g., Clapper, 2016; Duke & Kemeny, 1989; Faria & Nulsen, 1995).

Interpretation and Implications of the Findings

Simulation & Gaming was founded with the dual goals of promoting the use of simulations and serious games, and disseminating relevant international, inter-disciplinary scholarship (Crookall, 2000; Inbar, 1970; Wolfe, 1993, 1994). This review found that the Journal has made impressive progress towards the goal of disseminating international scholarship on simulation/gaming. The full corpus contains articles authored in 52 different societies. Moreover, the review documented the Journal’s progress in increasing the geographical breadth of authored content over time. Thus, Simulation & Gaming deserves plaudits for its progress towards fulfilling its mission as an ‘international journal’.

At the same time, our analysis also identified an imbalance in the geographical distribution of the journal’s corpus, with 90.8% of the articles authored in Anglo-American-European societies. In contrast, Hallinger and Wang’s (2020) review of the full simulation/gaming literature identified a much wider geographical distribution of research documents. They identified relevant documents authored in 93 different societies with 18% coming from Asia, Africa and Latin America. These comparative data suggest that opportunities exist for Simulation & Gaming to further diversify the geographical sources of its published scholarship.

The significance of this observation lies in consensual recognition that culture exerts a pervasive influence on teaching and learning processes in general (Biggs, 2001; Brown et al., 1989; Frambach, Driessen, Chan, & van der Vleuten, 2012; Watkins, 2000), and simulation/gaming in particular (Crookall & Arai, 1995; Crookall & Thorngate, 2009; Hallinger & Kantamara, 2001; Hofstede et al., 2010; Lu et al., 2014). The authors argue that the effectiveness of a simulation/game as a learning tool depends on both the cultural validity of the context in which the simulated problem is embedded, as well as the decision rules that define success for the learner (Hallinger & Kantamara, 2001; Hallinger, Tang, & Lu, 2017; Paige & Daley, 2009). Each of these core elements of simulations/games must take into account the cultural norms of a given society in order to be viewed as meaningful and valid in the minds of learners (Hallinger & Kantamara, 2001; Hallinger et al., 2017; Sackmann & Friesl, 2007; Lu et al., 2014).

More broadly, there is emerging evidence that active teaching/learning processes often require adaptation when used in different cultures (Biggs, 2001; Frambach et al., 2012; Hu, 2002; Sackmann & Friesl, 2007). Thus, for example while scholars have reported positive learning outcomes with the use of simulation/gaming in Asia, instructional processes such as goal-setting and debriefing may require refinements in these contexts (Auyeung, 2004; Crookall & Thorngate, 2009; Hofstede et al., 2010; Lederman, 1984; Morgan, 2000; Wolfe & Crookall, 1998). Exploring variations in the instructional design and use of simulations and serious games across a more diverse set of societies is critical to achieving the goal of building a globally-validated knowledge on simulation/gaming.

The authors wish to note that the editors of Simulation & Gaming and the International Simulation and Gaming Association (ISAGA) have long recognized this as a priority (Clapper, 2016; Crookall, 2000; Crookall & Arai, 1995; Wolfe & Crookall, 1998). Thus, it is hoped that the empirical analysis presented in this review will further reinforce efforts to achieve this goal. As the leading journal in this field, Simulation & Gaming has an opportunity to assert intellectual leadership that will cascade beyond simulation/gaming into other approaches to active learning which face similar challenges (e.g., problem-based learning project-based learning, cooperative learning, flipped classroom).

The authors offer several practical recommendations in this regard. First, we recommend that the editors expand and diversify Advisory Board membership to include simulation/gaming scholars from Africa and South America as well as broader representation from Asia. A perusal of the Journal’s Editorial and Advisory Boards revealed a list of 27 respected simulation/gaming scholars from nine nations. Although this is an ‘international’ group of scholars, only three Japanese members come from outside the Anglo-American-European societies whose authors account for most of Simulation & Gaming’s content. Our recommendation is for the Editorial and Advisory Boards to more closely mirror the geographic scope of authorship the Journal seeks to achieve, rather than the geographic scope of past contributions.

Second, in concert with this recommendation, the authors also encourage the editors to consider appointing sub-editors for different regions of the world. This would symbolize the Journal’s aspirations for gaining more diverse content coverage. In practical terms, it would also distribute leadership for sourcing quality manuscripts and reviewers from a broader set of societies.

A third recommendation is for Simulation & Gaming to consider sponsoring a series of special issues and/or featured articles that focus on simulation/gaming in these emerging regions of the world. A more diverse membership on the Editorial and Advisory Boards and the appointment of geographically diverse sub-editors could facilitate this publication strategy.

This review also aimed to identify high impact documents and authors published over the past 50 years in Simulation & Gaming. Garris et al.’s (2002) article emerged as a seminal contribution in the field’s effort to develop a science of gaming and game design (Crookall, 2010; Klabbers, 2006, 2018). This review employed multiple criteria for establishing ‘scholarly influence’: highly-cited documents, number of publications in the Journal, Scopus citations, co-citations. Synthesis of these results leads the authors to identify Joseph Wolfe, Anthony Faria, Eduardo Salas, David Kolb, Jan Klabbers, Richard Duke, David Crookall, and Precha Thavikulwat as the most influential contributors to the Simulation & Gaming corpus. Our results overlap with, but extend findings reported by Bragge et al. (2010).

The author co-citation map in Figure 3 highlighted the inter-disciplinary nature of the Journal’s corpus. Important contributions have come from scholars primarily associated with simulation/gaming (e.g., Wolfe, Faria, Crookall, Keys, Klabbers, Salas, Duke, Thavikulwat), psychology (e.g., Bandura, Vygotzky, Piaget, Csikszentmihalyi, Bruner), management science (e.g., Simon, Senge, Guestzkow, Hofstede, Schon, Argyris), education (Dewey, Kolb, Huizinga,), and health sciences (e.g., Gaba). Author co-citation analysis further suggested that theories of experiential learning drawn from cognitive and social psychology have served as the conceptual anchor of the knowledge base published in Simulation & Gaming (e.g., Crookall, 2010; Duke, 2000; Klabbers, 2018; Kolb & Kolb, 2009; Wolfe & Crookall, 1998).

Yet, despite this inter-disciplinary theoretical orientation, there appears to be an imbalance in the distribution of scholarship across different subject domains. For example, this review found that while Business and Management scholars were prominent among top-cited scholars publishing in Simulation & Gaming, there was but a single health sciences scholar listed in Table 2. This contrasts with the broader simulation/gaming literature in which health sciences scholars account for 15 of the 20 top-cited authors (see Hallinger & Wang, 2020, p. 18). Indeed, none of the five most highly-cited scholars in the full simulation/gaming literature (i.e., McGaghie, Issenberg, Petrusa, Scalese, Gordon) has published even once in Simulation & Gaming (see Hallinger & Wang, 2020, p. 18).

This suggests an opportunity for the Journal to expand its influence through garnering manuscripts from a broader range of subjects. This reinforces Clapper’s (2016) stated desire to diversify the range of subject domains covered in the Journal into, “healthcare, recreational games for educational purposes, urban planning, military simulation and modeling” (p. 4). Our findings may offer a useful empirical benchmark against which future progress towards this goal can be measured.

This review also sought to identify the research front (de Solla Price, 1965) comprised of topics that have garnered recent scholarly interest. Temporal keyword analysis identified active learning, game design, technology-enhanced simulations and games and sustainability as topical clusters of recent interest to authors in Simulation & Gaming.