Policy Gaming for Strategy and Change

Geurts, Jeroen; Duke, Richard D.; Vermeulen, Patrick

doi:10.1016/j.lrp.2007.07.004

Cited by 89 publications

(100 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…It is essential to integrate these two types of complexities, and serious games offer a mechanism through which stakeholders become a more intrinsic part of a computer model, not just as digital agents but as actual game players with real stakes, tacit knowledge, emotions, intuitions and interests [14]. A number of authors [16,18,[55][56][57][58][59] highlight that the learning (both individually as well as socially) that occurs through such participation in a game simulation may be transferred to the real world outside the game, while at the same time providing a low-risk and safe environment in which to creatively experiment. Serious games may therefore be seen as a form of intervention within a multi-stakeholder network setting that involves learning and changing of stakeholders' mental frames of transboundary water issues, while at the same time offering opportunities to learn about and change the social-political structure (i.e., by building trust, forming coalitions, and power plays in which the stakeholder network is embedded) [14].…”

Section: Serious Game Play For Social Learningmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring the Potential Impact of Serious Games on Social Learning and Stakeholder Collaborations for Transboundary Watershed Management of the St. Lawrence River Basin

Medema

Furber

Adamwoski

et al. 2016

Water

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Abstract:The meaningful participation of stakeholders in decision-making is now widely recognized as a crucial element of effective water resource management, particularly with regards to adapting to climate and environmental change. Social learning is increasingly being cited as an important component of engagement if meaningful participation is to be achieved. The exact definition of social learning is still a matter under debate, but is taken to be a process in which individuals experience a change in understanding that is brought about by social interaction. Social learning has been identified as particularly important in transboundary contexts, where it is necessary to reframe problems from a local to a basin-wide perspective. In this study, social learning is explored in the context of transboundary water resource management in the St. Lawrence River Basin. The overarching goal of this paper is to explore the potential role of serious games to improve social learning in the St. Lawrence River. To achieve this end, a two-pronged approach is followed: (1) Assessing whether social learning is currently occurring and identifying what the barriers to social learning are through interviews with the region's water resource managers; (2) Undertaking a literature review to understand the mechanisms through which serious games enhance social learning to understand which barriers serious games can break down. Interview questions were designed to explore the relevance of social learning in the St. Lawrence River basin context, and to identify the practices currently employed that impact on social learning. While examples of social learning that is occurring have been identified, preliminary results suggest that these examples are exceptions rather than the rule, and that on the whole, social learning is not occurring to its full potential. The literature review of serious games offers an assessment of such collaborative mechanisms in terms of design principles, modes of play, and their potential impact on social learning for transboundary watershed management. Serious game simulations provide new opportunities for multidirectional collaborative processes by bringing diverse stakeholders to the table, providing more equal access to a virtual negotiation or learning space to develop and share knowledge, integrating different knowledge domains, and providing opportunities to test and analyze the outcomes of novel management solutions. This paper concludes with a discussion of how serious games can address specific barriers and weaknesses to social learning in the transboundary watershed context of the St. Lawrence River Basin.

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Section: Serious Game Play For Social Learningmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring the Potential Impact of Serious Games on Social Learning and Stakeholder Collaborations for Transboundary Watershed Management of the St. Lawrence River Basin

Medema

Furber

Adamwoski

et al. 2016

Water

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“…This unfortunately was not realised fully due to the background of the participants, as well as the roles that participants had in the simulation. Only certain participants therefore had an opportunity to view the whole system, and this is in contradiction to many studies (Le Roux & Steyn, 2007;Geurts, Duke & Vermeulen, 2007). Some participants could therefore not take action as they were not enabled to do so in the real world.…”

Section: Reflections On the Use Of The Simulationmentioning

confidence: 86%

“…Although the simulation made no direct reference to the fisheries system, participants did seem to draw key learning lessons for their contexts. It cannot be stated with certainty however that they discovered new features to the problem or generated new ideas, as found by Geurts et al (2007). Most participants in the system may have been aware of their problems, but not on a deeper level.…”

Section: Reflections On the Use Of The Simulationmentioning

confidence: 95%

Interactive simulations for promoting transdisciplinary understanding: a case study of the Western Cape fisheries, South Africa

Proches

Bodhanya

2012

TDSA

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Simulations have proven beneficial in enabling participants from various backgrounds to meaningfully engage in learning from experience. The aim of this paper is to investigate how interactive simulations can play a role in navigating the changes faced in a multistakeholder setting, characterised by users dependent on marine resources and an authorising institution. Relevant literature in the areas of simulation and gaming, change management, systems thinking, and complexity theory was examined. A qualitative research approach and purposive sampling were employed. Interviews were first conducted with diverse stakeholders in the Western Cape fisheries of South Africa to determine the issues. A simulation was thereafter designed. The main findings from this study indicate that simulation use illustrates how the various stakeholders in a system interact, and how their actions and decisions influence each other. The simulation may be used in other areas of natural resource management, as well as in other kinds of multistakeholder scenarios.

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“…The list of research publications where SGs have been used and reviewed for IWRM is considerable and fast growing (e.g., [15,20,21,23,25,106]). A few studies stand out as providing experimental evidence of the ability and means through which SGs may facilitate behavioral changes.…”

Section: Values Can Be Learned Through Cognitive Reasoningmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Over the last decade, this type of game simulation has become more prevalent [20] in education, including teaching water management (e.g., [21,22]), water governance and policy (e.g., [23,24]), and other common-resource management fields (e.g., [25,26]). Although the professional and academic debate on the potential of serious games has quite a tradition (e.g., [19,20,27,28]…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Socio-Psychological Perspectives on the Potential for Serious Games to Promote Transcendental Values in IWRM Decision-Making

Marini

Medema

Adamowski

et al. 2018

Water

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Modern day challenges of water resource management involve difficult decision-making in the face of increasing complexity and uncertainty. However, even if all decision-makers possessed perfect knowledge, water management decisions ultimately involve competing values, which will only get more prominent with increasing scarcity and competition over resources. Therefore, an important normative goal for water management is long-term cooperation between stakeholders. According to the principles of integrated water resource management (IWRM), this necessitates that managerial decisions support social equity and intergenerational equity (social equity that spans generations). The purpose of this discussion is to formulate preliminary recommendations for the design of serious games (SGs), a potential learning tool that may give rise to shared values and engage stakeholders with conflicting interests to cooperate towards a common goal. Specifically, this discussion explores whether SGs could promote values that transcend self-interest (transcendental values), based on the contributions of social psychology. The discussion is organized in the following way. First, an introduction is provided as to why understanding values from psychological perspectives is both important for water management and a potential avenue for learning in SGs. Second, a review of the description of values and mechanisms of value change from the field of social psychology is presented. This review highlights key psychological constraints to learning or applying values. Based on this review, recommendations are made for SGs designers to consider when developing games for water management, in order to promote transcendental values. Overall, the main conclusions from exploring the potential of value change for IWRM through SGs design are as follows: 1-SGs design needs to consider how all values change systematically; 2-SGs design should incorporate the many value conflicts that are faced in real life water management, 3-SGs could potentially promote learning by having players reflect on the reasoning behind value priorities across water management situations, and 4-value change ought to be tested in an iterative SGs design process using the Schwartz's Value Survey (SVS) (or something akin to it).

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Policy Gaming for Strategy and Change

Cited by 89 publications

References 31 publications

Exploring the Potential Impact of Serious Games on Social Learning and Stakeholder Collaborations for Transboundary Watershed Management of the St. Lawrence River Basin

Exploring the Potential Impact of Serious Games on Social Learning and Stakeholder Collaborations for Transboundary Watershed Management of the St. Lawrence River Basin

Interactive simulations for promoting transdisciplinary understanding: a case study of the Western Cape fisheries, South Africa

Socio-Psychological Perspectives on the Potential for Serious Games to Promote Transcendental Values in IWRM Decision-Making

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