Does Conflict Content Affect Learning from Simulations? A Cross-National Inquiry into the Israeli-Palestinian and Guatemalan Conflict Scenarios

It is important to find out whether the content of a simulation has any effect on learning, whether students learn better when the simulation is about a conflict they directly experience as opposed to a conflict they have hardly heard about, and whether learning about a specific conflict changes from one identity group to another. In this article, we address these questions in a five-group experimental study, with direct parties to the conflict (Israeli-Jewish, Palestinian, and Guatemalan), third/secondary parties to the conflict (Turkish, American, and Brazilian), and distant parties to the conflict. Our results indicate that learning varies not only from one group to the other, but also with the salience of the conflict. While the simulations increase the level of knowledge about that particular conflict in almost all situations, when attitude change is concerned, the effects diversify from one group to the other.