A Comparison of Two Teaching Designs Using the Organization Game as a Measure of Outcome Performance

Abstract

According to the model of managerial readiness to develop, the classroom simulation of an organization should occur in a systematic, planned fashion, moving from simple to complex simulations, because students need to practice with the former to succeed with the latter. To test this idea, an organizational psychology class was taught using two different formats: (a) lecture-discussion training with a low level of complexity and (b) training with increasingly complex experiential exercises. The performance of each class was compared by using the objective performance indicators of the Organization Game, a complex simulation used to measure the relative performance of each class. The mean performance indicator for the experiential training classes was 87.8, which was significantly higher than the lecture-discussion mean of 64.8. These results support the idea of a continuum of complexity that should be considered when planning the use of experiential exercises.