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introduction – eu simulations as a multi-dimensional resource: from teaching and learning tool to research instrument

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Abstract

Simulations, understood as complex role plays, are nowadays widely used in (university) teaching to actively engage students and promote content-specific interactive learning, understanding, and communication. There is a growing debate about the functions and benefits of simulations in the university teaching context. Simulating the EU is not yet as common as simulating the UN, but the use of EU simulations gradually increases. In this paper, we discuss several aspects of EU simulations. First, we briefly review the importance of the EU in current European politics, and to its growing complexity, which represents a challenge for teaching and studying European integration. Second, we indicate that simulations address new didactical demands that arose in the context of the Bologna Process and the so-called ‘shift from teaching to learning’. And third, we move beyond the debate of EU simulations as merely an active learning tool, and discuss the (underestimated) role they may play as quasi-experiments, which may constitute a valuable resource both for didactical and European integration research. Together, these three aspects make EU simulations a promising multi-dimensional tool.

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Notes

  1. In the follow-up process of the Bologna Declaration 1999, European universities declared at their Convention in Salamanca in March 2001 that: ‘European higher education institutions recognize that their students need and demand qualifications which they can use effectively for the purpose of their studies and careers all over Europe.’ (University of Graz, 2003). In order to specify the mentioned qualifications and to induce necessary educational changes, more than 100 European universities started a pilot project entitled ‘Tuning educational structures in Europe’. Therein, the following generic competences and skills were identified as important: the capacity for analysis and synthesis, the ability to work autonomously, problem solving and teamwork orientation, flexibility and a practice orientation. As subject specific competences and skills the following were mentioned as important: a good command of the discipline, the ability to follow critically and interpret the newest development in theory and practice, and knowledge of research techniques (Wildt, 2013; cf. Fejes, 2008)

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  1. University of Mainz, Saarstraße 21, Mainz, 55122, Germany

    petra guasti, wolfgang muno & arne niemann

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guasti, p., muno, w. & niemann, a. introduction – eu simulations as a multi-dimensional resource: from teaching and learning tool to research instrument. Eur Polit Sci 14, 205–217 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1057/eps.2015.18

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