Lunce, Les M. "Simulaitons: Bringing the Benefits of Situated Learning to the Traditional Classroom"; Journal of Applied Educational Technology, 3:1 (2006): 37-45

Use of educational simulations is a relatively new phenomenon in the traditional classroom.  In this article, Dr. Lunce references over twenty studies performed in the field of instructional simulations between 1986 and 2003, but the majority were performed between 1996 and 2003.  Simulations have the potential to bring real-world learning into the traditional classroom and Dr. Lunce discusses several research projects that illustrate this. 

Dr. Lunce wrote this article (see download below) while he was a doctoral student at the University of North Texas and he has been an Associate Director and Instructional Design Specialist at the Center for Instruction, Research & Technology at Indiana State University since 2007.  Dr. Lunce’s dissertation topic, as well as his ongoing research, involved the design, deployment and assessment of instructional simulation. 

Dr. Lunce discusses how the purpose of an educational simulation is “to motivate the learner to engage in problem solving, hypothesis testing, experiential learning, schema construction and development of mental models.”  He and the researchers that he refers to throughout the article all agree that in order to facilitate learning effectively, educational simulations must “rely heavily on scaffolding, coaching and feedback.”  Research has shown that students learn better when the topics are interesting, motivating and closer to real-world experiences.  This is the basis of Dr. Lunce’s research on instructional simulation and he believes that future research should focus on several specific areas, including the study of (1) the efficacy of classroom use of educational simulations, (2) the roles of feedback, coaching, scaffolding, learner control and debriefing in instructional simulations and (3) various simulation models and their support for specific situated learning strategies.

Dr. Lunce discusses three studies involving middle school students in different parts of the United States.  The first study was performed by Van Eck and Dempsey (2002) who reported on the testing of a computer simulation designed to transfer of mathematics skills of 7^th and 8^th grade students in a Gulf Coast city from learning context to a real-world scenario.  The second study was performed by Jackson (1997) who documented three case studies focusing on use of microcomputer and interactive video simulations in astronomy and geology classes at a public middle school in small urban environment in the Southeastern United States.  The third study was performed by Dwyer and Lopez (2001) who observed students engaged in exploration of a river ecosystem using an educational simulation with integrated interactive video.  They collected data from three surveys developed and administered by science teacher of the students, together with comments from her daily journal.  It is interesting to note that all of the students in the third study exhibited some form of documented learning disability. 

Although the three research projects that Dr. Lunce discusses in his article illustrate the potential of instructional simulations to provide real-world situated learning experiences in the traditional classroom, much more research is needed. 

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