Overview of Simulation in Higher Education: Methods and Applications

Simulation is one of the most widely used methodologies in many areas such as industry, army, leisure activities, and education. This chapter is devoted to simulation in higher education (HE) and its use for administrative and educational purposes. Many types of simulation models have been used in HE for various purposes. Literature reviews have been published on specific types of simulations in HE but, to the best of our knowledge, there has not been a comprehensive overview of all types of simulation models in HE. We classify simulation models in HE into two types: (a) analytic simulations models such as discrete event simulation and system dynamics, and (b) educational simulation models such as, virtual reality, games, and simulators for training. This overview presents examples for each method, which gives some idea of the specific areas of HE they were used for. Moreover, taxonomy tables summarize the number of articles published over the last 20 years for each simulation method in HE in the Web of Science, along with the area of applications they are used for in HE. The number of articles on educational simulations is larger by far than the number of articles on analytic simulations. This overview is useful for developers of HE simulations and for administrators in HE institutions.