Simulation Education: A Survey of Faculty and Practitioners

Abstract

This paper aims to raise current simulation teaching practices and identify the challenges and opportunities for improvement in simulation education. A survey was carried out with authors and chairs of Simulation Education tracks of the Winter Simulation Conference editions from 2000 to 2017. The results highlighted the primary practices, difficulties, and opportunities for improvement, raised by professionals that currently teach or used to teach simulation in undergraduate courses in engineering, computer science, and business administration, among others. Two issues highlighted in the survey are the balance between theory and practice, and the role of simulation projects as a tool to consolidate the learning process in simulation education. We found that professors value simulation projects in the discipline and the importance of working with real-world problems. Finally, the present survey identified a concern within the academic community in discussing and improving the process of teaching and learning simulation.