Consistency of Participant Simulation Performance across Simulation Games of Growing Complexity

Abstract

The present study is a replication of an earlier study by Wellington, Faria and Whiteley (1997) that examined the relationship between participant simulation game performance over two separate simulation competitions. In the original and current study, students were exposed to two different simulation games over two semesters in two separate marketing courses – the second simulation being far more complex than the first. The present study sought to overcome a key limitation of the earlier work by employing a much larger sample size. The new study involving 189 students found that players exhibiting higher rank order performance in Merlin: A Marketing Simulation tended to outperform players exhibiting a lower rank order performance in COMPETE: A Dynamic Marketing Simulation. Due, in part, to the larger sample involved in the present study (189 participants versus 27 in the earlier study), it was found that there is consistency in simulation participant performance across simulation competitions.