Chelsea Bank: SCANS and Workplace Knowledge

This study of student groups working with the Chelsea Bank computer simulation concentrates on the extent to which students are involved in activities related to the Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills (SCANS) categories and to knowledge about work place practices. Studying students using the Chelsea Bank simulations offers the opportunity to see if computer simulations can influence the way time is spent in classrooms and the extent to which learning in a simulated environment can transfer beyond that environment. In the first study, researchers analyzed samples of nonsystematically gathered videotapes of 13 groups of 3 high school and middle school students using the simulations. The second study involved the systematic gathering and analysis of videotapes of students using the Chelsea Bank scenarios and case study interviews and examples of student assignments. Two groups of three students in an eighth-grade class and two groups from a ninth-grade class were studied. The first study suggested that students using the simulations were more engaged than students in traditional classrooms, and that they were actively processing information to solve problems almost the whole time they were being taped. In the second study, in which the taping procedure was less obtrusive, similar results were seen. In both studies, students demonstrated considerable involvement with SCANS competencies in the areas of resource identification and use, interpersonal skills, information acquisition and processing, and monitoring performance and recognizing consequences of actions. Evidence for transfer of skills and information has not yet been analyzed completely but the presence of transfer has been supported. (Contains three references.) (SLD)