Economic inequality has reached historically high levels in both the United States and in the world. The research literature in sociology and political science has long shown that individuals tend to be very persistent in their views on the determinants of economic success, although these views may be formed on cultural and cognitive biases. For example, people in the U.S. tend to emphasize characterological attributions—intelligence, hard-working—over fatalistic or structural causes because they believe in individualism and the American Dream—the promise that all Americans have a reasonable chance to achieve success through their own efforts and to attain virtue and fulfillment through success. People also severely underestimate the level of wealth inequality and base their policy preferences, such as the preferences in redistributive tax policies, on their perceptions, rather than the reality. Such biases can have serious economic, social, and political consequences. I designed the Mind The Gap (MTG) agent-based participatory simulation (ABPS) curricular unit to help people understand wealth inequality by leveraging the research in complexity sciences and the affordances of participatory simulations—a type of computer-based role-playing simulation activity that immerses students in a virtual world, where they become a part of a complex system and experience the rules and mechanisms governing the system. ABM and PartSims have been shown engaging and effective in helping students learn STEM content. This dissertation is among the first to extend their use to the social sciences to improve students’ perceptions and beliefs toward the complex and controversial social issue of wealth inequality. During the implementation of the MTG unit, the 220+ high school students showed high engagement. The analyses of multimodal data generated from a three-phase two-condition quasi-experiment centering on the MTG unit show that ABPS can help change students’ perceptions and beliefs toward wealth inequality. After participating in the MTG unit, students had significantly more accurate estimates of the level of wealth inequality in the U.S. Students in a control group watched a documentary specifically made about wealth inequality, in which inequality was clearly explained with explicit data display and emotional real-life stories. However, the control group made no improvements in the accuracy of their estimation. Students in MTG condition also had significant shifts in their beliefs toward a less individualistic stance, which are comparable to the shifts that students had in the control group. The comparisons between the MTG groups and the control groups reveal that the shifts in students’ perceptions and beliefs do not necessarily go hand in hand. These findings and design principles contribute to the Learning Sciences field’s knowledge about the affordances of ABPS and shed light on ways to design future instructional interventions that can address other complex and controversial social issues, such as the resistance of vaccination, gun control, and climate change.

Creator

• Guo, Yu

DOI

• https://doi.org/10.21985/n2-6hhm-qg03

Subject

• Educational technology

Language

• en

Alternate Identifier

• http://dissertations.umi.com/northwestern:14690
• etdadmin_upload_663418

Keyword

• Wealth Inequality
• Learning Environment Design
• Participatory Simulation
• Complex System
• Agent-Based Modeling

Date created

• 2019-01-01

Resource type

• Dissertation

Rights statement

• In Copyright