Wirkungen politischer Planspiele auf Einstellungen, Motivationen und Kenntnisse von Schülerinnen und Schülern zur Europäischen Union

This contribution presents the results of a systematic intervention study on the effects of EU simulation games on the EU-related political competencies of German secondary school students. The pilot study focused on two key dimensions: specialist knowledge and political attitudes and motivations (Detjen et al. 2012). On the one hand, this paper studies the changes in the constructs before and after students played the simulation games. On the other, it considers their assessments of the quality and effect of such games and analyses the influence of socio-demographic background variables. The study was complemented with qualitative student interviews, which are cited to illustrate data interpretation. Findings highlight the potential of simulation games to help students understand “parliaments from the inside” (Schöne 2017, 95), to strengthen their sense of political activity, and to counter their weariness of political processes.