Simulation As a Tool in Education Research and Development. A Technical Paper. EdTalk.

This document introduces simulation as a field of endeavor that has great potential for education research, development, and training. Simulation allows education developers to explore, develop, and test new educational programs and practices before communities, educators, and students are asked to participate in them. Simulation technologies exist in at least four major forms: (1) gaming, formalized play with rules players follow; (2) role-playing, in which participants assume specific parts in defined situations; (3) simulators, systems in which operators and machines interact in ways that approximate real life; and (4) modeling, experimentation with representations of a system. Some uses of these approaches in education research are given. These applications include a change game, in which change in a school district is presented as a game and a role-playing simulation in program planning at WestEd. Another example is a task simulation at the Far West Consortium for Educational Development, Dissemination, and Evaluation. Simulation and its modern-day companion, virtual reality, will play a major role in entertainment and science for the foreseeable future. These new applications will be useful in education research through constructing artificial prototypes, studying living systems, and imitating how the brain works. Three appendixes provide two examples of simulation in use in education research settings and a list of modeling software vendors. Contains a 32-item annotated bibliography. (Contains 1 figure and 23 references.) (SLD)