Charting the experiential territory_ Clarifying definitions and uses of computer simulation.pdfVIP

The research register for this journal is available at The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at /researchregisters /0262-1711.htm Journal of Charting the experiential Management Development territory 21,10 Clarifying de?nitions and uses 732 of computer simulation, games, and Received October 2001 role play Revised January 2002 Accepted January 2002 Andrew Hale Feinstein, Stuart Mann and David L. Corsun University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA Keywords Computer simulation, Experiential learning, Games, Role play Abstract The literature around experiential learning is unclear regarding the similarities and differences among simulation, games, and role play. In order to appropriately evaluate instructional processes, de?nitional clarity is necessary. In this article, we provide a de?nitional foundation and classi?cation scheme for the topics of computer simulation, role play, and games. The educational and training outcomes of each are discussed, providing readers the means to determine for themselves, the pedagogical appropriateness of simulation, games, or role play to a given situation. Introduction This article rises out of frustration, the frustration from reading a wide variety of papers each using words like simulation, games, role playing, gaming, and symbolic modeling either without de?nition or inconsistency from one work to another. In part, our intention in this paper is to provide a classi?cation scheme, a taxonomy and nomenclature for simulation. We believe this is necessary for the purposes of assessment and evaluation of instructional processes. To do this, we focus our discussion on the uses of simulation as an experiential methodology for education and training. In the literature, authors waver on their de?nitions of role playing, gaming, and computer simulation. Simulation modeling is a well-established technique that duplicates the “features, appearance, and characteristics” of a re