Problem Framing through Gaming: Learning to Manage Complexity, Uncertainty, and Value Adjustment

Abstract

In social systems, an almost limitless number of social issues exist that cannot be dealt with in isolation. Traditional professional knowledge is not well suited to coping with complex and unique situations. Problem solving as encountered in mathematics and physics brings forward a narrow, technical rationality, emphasizing a rationalist framework for interpreting knowledge. The related problem-solving strategies are too limited in scope. They disregard competing frameworks based on multiple perceptions. It is against this background of multiple realities that gaming will be discussed. Gaming, in the historicist tradition, provides a suitable approach for dealing with competing frameworks. It has proven to be a powerful combination of methods that can deal with complex, uncertain, and unique issues, and with value adjustments. Gaming provides a language for combining the social-human with the physical, technological, and economic knowledge domains. To connect these knowledge domains, three types of learning environments are distinguished.