Creating Simulations for Political Science Education

Simulations, particularly human-to-human interactions, offer social science students the opportunity to learn from firsthand experience, and can be an important and useful addition to an educator's teaching repertoire. However, it can be difficult for an instructor to know how to structure a simulation environment to meet specific educational goals. In this article, we suggest a pedagogical framework, focusing on the choice between educating students about process or content, for developing a social science simulation environment that promotes the desired learning objectives. We discuss time and technology limitations, and outline a number of structural considerations to help simulation designers as they develop their own simulations. Finally, we present a web-based tool to facilitate the creation of simulations (face-to-face or computer-mediated) based on the framework. We believe that the pedagogical structure and the virtual infrastructure will help those educators who would like to use simulations in their classrooms, but have not found any that suit their particular needs.