Using a pre-=posttest research design, this article measures the learning impact of active-learning techniques such as role-playing simulations in an international relations course. Using the students' different responses to the pre-and postsimulation surveys in a quasi-experimental design whereby two sections that were taught by the same instructor were given different sets of theoretical readings, this article shows how exposure to different decision-making theories has a measurable effect on how students behave in the role-playing simulation.

Using a role-playing simulation on government formation with pre-and posttest assessment format, I show that students developed a significantly greater capacity for precision and specificity in their answers about the process of coalition government formation in parliamentary systems; students changed their beliefs in the ability of institutional rules to causally affect the process of coalition government formation in parliamentary systems; and, finally, students, changed their views on whether office-seeking politicians are more successful than policy-seeking politicians in forming coalition governments in parliamentary systems.H ow do you explain the importance of the formateur in a parliamentary democracy to a midshipman? And even if you manage to explain the critical role that a formateur plays in the formation of a coalition government in a parliamentary democracy with deeply ingrained cultural, social, and linguistics divisions in a country like Belgium, how can you assess that a student retains this knowledge? Fortunately, role-playing simulations, which have been effectively used as pedagogical tools for the transmission of knowledge in a variety of subfields of political science, enable student learning in such a context. Moreover, by using a pre-and posttest research design I assessed the learning effects of the role-playing simulation and show how the roleplaying simulation increased the students' ability to grasp complex concepts in comparative politics, operationalize different theories of coalition government formation, and apply the lessons of bargaining theory in a more precise manner after the role-playing simulation. Last, but not least, the students responded, and keeping in line with evidence from other role-playing simulations, with much higher levels of satisfaction than with traditional forms of learning.As my jumping-off point I used the recent and expanding work in comparative politics role-playing simulations. Last, but not least, these role-playing simulations emphasize the need to combine and integrate learning objectives with teaching goals.Accordingly, I designed and used a role-playing simulation that integrated three learning objectives with three teaching goals. In terms of learning objectives, I wanted the students to (1) experientially learn how coalition governments come together, realizing both the complex dynamics of ideological conflict and the need for compromise that are involved in forming a coalition government; (2) to apply the different theories behind government formation in such a way as to travel down the ladder of abstraction from abstract theories to measurable hypotheses and then to operationalized variables, thus illustrating to students the basic principles that underpin complex theories of political science; 1 (3) and to test competitively office-and policy-seeking theories of government formation in a quasi-experimental fashion.

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