Simulation Games and Attitude Change

By Samuel A. Livingston

Subjects: Attitude Change, Behavior Change, Poverty, Social Attitudes, Slums, Social Studies, Affective Behavior, Simulation, High School Students, Educational Research, Educational Games

Description: This investigation attempted to evaluate the effectiveness of the simulation game, Ghetto, in changing attitudes, and to determine whether effectiveness is associated with the personal characteristics of the players. There are two purposes: to teach factual information about the conditions faced by the urban poor in the inner city and to produce a more favorable attitude towards poverty. The entire homogeneous senior class in an all-boy catholic high school in Baltimore participated in the role playing. This simple one-group pretest and posttest questionnaire study was conducted as a part of a unit on poverty in eight social studies classes for four 55 minute periods. No other activities were allowed between pre and post-tests. A pretest self report item measured personal and vicarious experience with poverty. The greatest practical and statistically significant finding was that student attitudes were more favorable after the game than before. However, no increase in factual information and a small decline in interest were measured. Attitude change was positively correlated with vicarious experience with poverty, supporting Jerry L. Fletcher (1968). (There were no measures of long-term attitude change or teacher attitudes). (SBE).