Thinking Interestingly: The Use of Game Play to Enhance Learning and Facilitate Critical Thinking Within a Homeland Security Curriculum

Abstract

Students of homeland security need to grasp a diverse body of knowledge and have a keen understanding of the variety of events and issues that impact how they can apply that knowledge. The goal of higher education should not just be about imparting knowledge but also about giving students tools and skill sets to 'think interestingly' to be successful in their future career. These are critical thinking and problem-solving, agility and adaptability, accessing and analysing information, and curiosity and imagination. This study examines the pedagogical approach to incorporate game play, specifically the use of probability-based tabletop exercises, into course curriculums to enhance knowledge and develop these particular skill sets. Data were collected from students enrolled in courses with terrorism and homeland security as major themes. The goal of the study was to answer the questions: did students enrolled in a homeland securityrelated course perceive game-based learning as enhancing their comprehension of course material and did it allow them to think interestingly to apply the material to real-world situations? This study shows that these students perceived game play as enhancing their overall learning experience and improving these targeted skill sets.

Student Perceptions in Homeland Security and Emergency Management Education: Experiential Learning Survey

“…This study's results indicate that students perceived a high overall value for experiential learning, suggesting that they believed the experience was relevant to real-world applications and would be useful in future experiences. The ELS survey results also showed student interest in the activity and the learning process, which corresponds with established research on experiential learning (Mesny, 2013), HSEM experiential learning (Cozine, 2015), and previous applications of the ELS instrument (Clem et al, 2014;Hefley & Thouin, 2016). The ELS was originally developed and tested for use in evaluating experiential learning for social work students (Clem et al, 2014) and has been further tested with Agile project management students (Hefley & Thouin, 2016).…”

The use of tabletop exercises in nuclear security education

“…The US DOE also frequently uses TTXs as a proven methodology for the evaluation of physical protection strategies and systems which safeguard nuclear material (US Department of Energy, 2002). Likewise, homeland security, and emergency medicine professionals use TTXs to practice their responses to natural disasters (Nielson and Kitching, 2012), pandemic disease outbreaks (High et al , 2010; Pate et al , 2016; Rega and Fink, 2014; Savoia et al , 2017) and acts of terrorism (Cozine, 2015; Sandström et al , 2014; Turoff et al , 2013). Recently, Borgardt et al (2017) also report the use of TTXs in the nuclear forensics community.…”