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Abstract

Simulation is a technique which has gained considerable attention and use in education recently as a strategy for teaching, eliciting, and evaluating higher-level problem-solving skills while providing realism, richness, and complexity.

Complex problem-solving skills are important outcomes of most professional programs in medicine, dentistry, law, and education. Various means have been employed to teach and to test these skills, with simulation techniques being among the most promising.

Computer-based simulation can provide a flexible and individually responsive dimension while automatically scoring and maintaining detailed records of each student's performance.

Computer simulation in the health sciences and law provide a strategy—a medium uniquely suited to instruction in problem-solving for large numbers of students. Projects at the University of Iowa and elsewhere to develop, use, and test simulations for instruction in these settings is described and compared.

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Simulation to Teach or Evaluate Problem-Solving in Professional Programs

Abstract

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References