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There is now a CONTENT FREEZE for Mercury while we switch to a new platform. It began on Friday, March 10 at 6pm and will end on Wednesday, March 15 at noon. No new content can be created during this time, but all material in the system as of the beginning of the freeze will be migrated to the new platform, including users and groups. Functionally the new site is identical to the old one. webteam@gatech.edu
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THE SCHOOL OF CITY AND REGIONAL PLANNING
GEORGIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
Under the provisions of the regulations for the degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
on Thursday, January 12, 2017
2:00 PM to 4:00 PM
in
Architecture EAST 214 (formerly room 217)
will be held the
DISSERTATION PROPOSAL DEFENSE
for
Camille Victoria Barchers
“A new model for public engagement: games and social learning”
The Examiners Are:
Dr. Bruce Stiftel, Chairperson
Dr. Steve French, Chairperson
Dr. Chris Le Dantec
Dr. Robert Goodspeed, University of Michigan
Dr. Eric Gordon, Emerson College
Faculty and students are invited to attend this examination.
Abstract:
This dissertation demonstrates how game playing can create opportunities for social learning in public participation activities and whether and to what extent participants demonstrate enhanced collaborative decision making (collective intelligence) as a result. This research also demonstrates whether or not online gaming can create the same or better opportunities for social learning—highlighting the potential of Internet Communication Technology (ICT) to advance public engagement activities. The purpose of this research is to demonstrate how planners might practically and intentionally design small group activities to enhance public participation exercises, develop the abilities of participants to contribute at a higher level, and take advantage of ICT to advance collaborative planning theory in practice. Literature from collaborative planning theory, organizational behavior, and game theory is used to explain the importance of social learning, identify the potential for games to be used as a team building interventions, determine how interventions can be deployed in practice, and demonstrate the ability of games to change team behaviors in measurable ways that have been successfully used to predict team performance.
By using an experimental research design to test public participation methods, this research provides new perspectives on public participation and civic engagement. The impacts of this research are important not only for planners, but for all institutions that rely on collaborative decision making and want to improve group processes. This work advances the team building literature by examining how an intervention can be used to enhance group performance within and among temporarily convened groups of individuals. This work advances the collaborative planning literature by defining specific and applied methods that planners can use to achieve important intermediary goals such as social learning, but also because it demonstrates the basis for claims that social learning is a significant variable that leads to other beneficial outcomes, previously only theoretically hypothesized.
