Geert Vissers

A Simple Classification Model for Debriefing Simulation Games

Debriefing is an important phase in using simulation games. Participants are invited to make a connection between experiences gained from playing the game and experiences in real-life situations. Thus, debriefing is the phase meant to encourage learning fromthe simulation game. Although design and practice of debriefing sessions should be aligned to this aim, it is necessary to distinguish different forms or modes of learning. The authors’central argument is that the shape of debriefing will have to meet the learning objectives being pursued in a concrete simulation game. They propose a general classification of learning objectives that allows a distinction to be made between types of use of simulation games. In each of the four types distinguished, the debriefing serves different purposes for which specific requirements can be formulated.

The Validity of Games

One way to deal with complex situations is the simulation approach: build a simplified model of this reality, learn from this simplified model, and, finally, translate the findings or knowledge back to the reality. Gaming is based on this idea. If we want to make inferences about reality based on experiences and knowledge acquired in a game, we have to be sure that the game model is a good, or valid, representation of the real situation. In this article, the concept of validity is explored in relation to games and simulations; four aspects of validity that apply to simulations and games are distinguished. These aspects are related to three applications of games. The article concludes with factors that may threaten validity during the process of the game design; a few suggestions are made to avert these threats.

Terra Nova, a Game on the Social Surroundings of the Environment

Terra Nova is a game about sustainable development, not only of physical environment but also of other conditions for human life, such as caring and responsible social relations, food and shelter, health, education, justice, peace and cultural tolerance. The game allows the articulation and implementation of ideas on the ways we produce and reproduce society. Such ideas may and will vary among actors, which gives rise to dynamics not captured by educational or research instruments that fail to pay due attention to the part played by communication, negotiation, anticipation of others’ behaviours, in short, human interaction.

Learning from Evaluation - Institutional Change as Social (Re)Construction

Policy processes evolve in highly institutionalized environments, and policy effects are generally shaped by these environments. Policy outcomes could therefore be expected to be patterned and even predictable. In practice, however, prediction of policy outcomes is difficult. In part this lack of predictability relates to policy itself as many policies aim at institutional change: new norms, new rules, new patterns of behavior. However, policy is not the only force that is influencing such institutions. Moreover, institutional change can take place in the absence of a policy directed to it. This can happen as the outcome of interaction between many different societal actors reacting on external change or internal tensions. These societal actors find themselves in different institutional environments, which means that in explaining the outcomes of a policy process no single institutional framework can be presupposed, but rather a multiplicity of more or less connected and overlapping institutionalized patterns. Institutions ‘work’ if and when they appear as meaningful to actors. Here the term institution actually refers to two parallel phenomena: formal institutions and stabilized practice or action routines. In our view, these two phenomena come together in actors’ repertoires, defined as stabilized ways of thinking and acting. But repertoires do not fully determine thinking and acting, as there are always circumstances to which existing repertoires do not fully fit. Therefore, new sense making, and generation of new patterns of action are neede, which implies change of repertoires elicited by experience and/or reflection. We call this learning. The central question of our research, then, is how and when such learning takes place, especially by government and governmental agencies.In this paper we elaborate these preliminary notions with respect to the impact of policy evaluations by the Dutch Court of Audit. This focus combines a highly and explicitly institutionalized setting with a relatively explicit learning function. After a short introduction on the CoA we will elaborate our theoretical argument and illustrate it with examples from three case studies of the impact of CoA evaluations – State Museums, Lynx Helicopter, and Government Information Campaigns.