Role-playing simulations are frequently claimed to be effective pedagogical tools in the teaching of international relations (IR); however, there is a surprising lack of empirical evidence on their classroom utility. The assessment of simulations remains mostly anecdotal, and some recent research has found little to no statistically significant improvements in quantitative measures of academic performance among students who participated in them [for example, International Studies Perspectives (2006), vol. 7, pp. 395; International Studies Perspectives (2008), vol. 9, pp. 75-89]. Scant research has been conducted on how role-playing simulations might affect students' perceptions of the instructor's teaching. This paper investigates whether a simulation had statistically significant effect on students' exam scores in an IR course or on student teaching evaluation scores.Role-playing simulations are often described as positive learning experiences for students. By their very nature, simulations allow students to participate more actively in the learning process and gain a more thorough understanding of course material. A better grasp of course content would seem to result in better academic performance and more favorable impressions of the instructor's teaching by students. In the Fall 2006, Spring 2007, and Fall 2007 semesters, I taught seven sections of the same introductory international relations (IR) course at a private university with an undergraduate enrollment of less than 5,000 students. Four of these sections participated in a role-playing simulation on the Middle East. During the same three semesters, three other sections of the course did not participate in the simulation. In contrast to what is commonly expected from the use of simulations, I noticed that there seemed to be no difference in academic performance between students who participated in the simulation and those who did not. The simulation also appeared to be associated with lower teaching evaluation results. I decided to investigate what statistically significant relationships, if any, might have existed between students' involvement in the simulation, their performance on exams, and their evaluation of my teaching. 1 1 Data was analyzed after students' final grades had been submitted. Identifying information was removed from the data set to protect student anonymity. Ó 2010 International Studies AssociationInternational Studies Perspectives (2010) 11, 51-60.

Simulations are employed widely as teaching tools in political science, yet evidence of their pedagogical effectiveness, in comparison to other methods of instruction, is mixed. The assessment of learning outcomes is often a secondary concern in simulation design, and the qualitative and quantitative methods used to evaluate outcomes are frequently based on faulty paradigms of the learning process and inappropriate indicators. Correctly incorporating assessment into simulation design requires that an instructor identify whether a simulation should produce positive changes in students' substantive knowledge, skills, and/or affective characteristics. The simulation must then be assessed in ways that accurately measure whether these goals have been achieved. Proper assessment can help demonstrate that simulations are productive tools for learning and that their popularity in the classroom is justified

In November 2006, undergraduate students in a Model United Nations Club (MUN) conducted an exercise intended to simulate a series of crises in the Middle East. In the exercise, a total of 66 undergraduate students role-played cabinet-level officials in Iran, Iraq, Syria, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt, and were required to make foreign policy decisions based on knowledge acquired in the classroom and on information delivered as the exercise unfolded.

We introduce a real-time problem-based simulation in which students are tasked with drafting policy to address the challenge of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in postearthquake Haiti from a variety of stakeholder perspectives. Students who participated in the simulation completed a quantitative survey as a pretest/posttest on global empathy, political awareness, and civic engagement, and provided qualitative data through postsimulation focus groups. The simulation was run in four courses across three campuses in a variety of instructional settings from 2013 to 2015. An analysis of the data reveals that scores on several survey items measuring global empathy and political/civic engagement increased significantly, while qualitative student comments corroborated the results. This format of a real-time problem-based policymaking simulation is readily adaptable to other ongoing and future global crises using the framework provided in this paper.

University of Hawai'i after language training and dissertation research in Vietnam. He teaches courses in international relations, comparative politics, and political economy, with a particular interest in Asia. He has published a number of journal articles on economic reform in Vietnam and China, state formation and nationalism in Cambodia, and the use of simulations in the teaching of international relations. ABSTRACTInstitutions of higher learning are increasingly asked to defend curricular and pedagogical outcomes. Faculty must demonstrate that simulations are productive tools for learning, but a review of the literature shows that the evidence of their effectiveness is inconclusive, despite their popularity in the classroom. Simulations may in fact help students learn, but the pedagogical benefits of simulations may be being attributed too generally to the learning environments that they supposedly produce, rather than the specific learning modalities that occur within them. The paper concludes with a recommendation that educators choose particular learning techniques first, and then build simulations around these techniques, rather than the reverse.