Review of educational use of games and simulations.

Number Title WP D 1 Review of educational use of games and simulations 1 This work has been carried out under the IST fifth framework programme. This study examines the theoretical analyses and empirical results from research in the area of instructional use of games and simulations. It mainly focuses on approaches taken in designing game(like) learning environments and distils a list of characteristics of games from the instructional theory. It also tries to find evidence concerning the appropriate learning approaches and measures which can optimise the learning effects of games and simulations. In this analysis we also look at a related instructional methods: the use of case studies, a method that is very common in the training of management techniques. A second analysis that is made in this study concerns solving ill-defined or wicked problems. In the KITS context the knowledge management situations can be characterised as being ill-defined. Both analyses result in a set of requirements for the KITS learning environment. The starting points of the KITS project are shortly introduced in Chapter 1. Chapter 2 starts by defining the concept of 'game' and gives a list of characteristics of 'games' based on a literature study. This resulted in the following definition: Games are competitive, situated (learning) environments based on a set of rules and/or an underlying model , in which, under certain constraints, some goal state must be reached. Games are situated in a specific context that make them (more or less) realistic, appealing and motivating for the players. Important elements that are related to the situatedness of games are validity/fidelity, complexity, risk, uncertainty, surprise, unexpected events, role-play, access to information, and the representation form of the game. Games as learning environments are closely related to simulations, microworlds, adventures and case studies. The definitions of these environments partially overlap. For instance, the distinction between simulation and games is often blurred, and many recent articles in this area refer to a single " simulation game " entity. The educational goals of games depend on the setting in which they are used and can be very diverse like: development of consciousness and motivation, training of skills, development of knowledge and insight, training in communication and cooperation , integration of learning experiences, and assessment. Much of the work on the evaluation of games has been anecdotal, descriptive or judgmental, but there are some indications that they are effective and are …