Teaching public budgeting in the age of austerity using simulations
| Author | Daniel J Mallinson |
| Published date | 01 July 2018 |
| Date | 01 July 2018 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0144739418769406 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
Teaching Public Administration
Teaching public budgeting
2018, Vol. 36(2) 110–125
ª The Author(s) 2018
in the age of austerity
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DOI: 10.1177/0144739418769406
using simulations
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Daniel J Mallinson
School of Public Affairs, Penn State Harrisburg, USA
Abstract
Public administrators are deeply affected by the global crisis in public finances. As public
sector revenues remain weak and demand increases for spending and debt reduction, as
well as tax reform, the newest cadre of public administration students must learn how to
face the challenge of substantial uncertainty in public finances, regardless of whether they
serve at the national, regional, or local level. Simulations offer an effective and powerful
tool within a safe classroom environment for teaching students about the process and
challenges of public budgeting. This article examines two free web-based simulations that
can be quickly incorporated into an introductory public administration course. It further
addresses differences in using the simulations as role-thinking or role-playing exercises.
Observations from students and the instructor provide insight into the advantages and
disadvantages of isolated role-thinking versus collaborative role-playing. The procedures
included can be adapted for any online budgeting simulation without requiring the
instructor to create a great deal of content on their own.
Keywords
Pedagogy, austerity politics, public budgeting, public administration, computer-based
simulations
Public administrators are deeply affected by the global crisis in public finances. As
public sector revenues remain weak and demand increases for spending and debt
reduction, as well as tax reform, the newest cadre of public administration students must
learn how to face the challenge of substantial uncertainty in public finances, regardless
of whether they serve at the national, regional, or local level. Not only are administrators
Corresponding author:
Daniel J Mallinson, School of Public Affairs, Penn State Harrisburg, 777 W. Harrisburg Pike, Middletown, PA
17057, USA.
Email: mallinson@psu.edu; Telephone: 717-948-6503
Mallinson
111
the target of rhetorical ire against “big government” and resulting austerity politics, but
the public sector is also shedding jobs. For example, between 2009 and 2012, the US
states eliminated 137,000 positions (2.6%) and local governments eliminated 437,000
(3.3%). The percentage of the overall US workforce employed by federal, state, and local
governments is the same today as the early 1960s (Bump, 2015). Furthermore, admin-
isters will be on the front lines of dealing with mounting obligations from pensions,
entitlements, and debts, which draw resources from other priorities, as well as slow
economic growth that constrains revenue. Simulations allow students to wrestle with
these challenges in the relative safety of the classroom.
Role-playing simulation is a powerful tool for placing students into a “real world”
context for the purpose of reinforcing class content and improving learning outcomes
(Wedig, 2010). Giving students agency to make decisions within the realistic constraints
faced by governments affords them the opportunity to make practical and difficult
decisions regarding budget allocation. Doing so within the classroom gives students the
opportunity to explore the challenges of budgeting in a safe and low-stakes environment.
Furthermore, using a realistic context helps students build a bridge between budgeting
theory and the real-world decisions that they will have to make as administrators.
In this article, I examine methods for incorporating budgeting role-thinking (Green
and Armstrong, 2011) and role-playing in the classroom (Schafer, 2016). Specifically, I
evaluate the implementation of two computer-based budget simulations in introductory
courses in public administration at a public university. Both simulations are set within
the context of the United States of America, which is thus the main focus of the article.
That being said, there are web-based simulations available in some other countries and
public administration faculty may wish to draw on these lessons in implementing web
applications in their own country.
I further argue that a web-based approach would be useful in introductory courses at
the graduate level. Each simulation introduces students to the economic and political
aspects of the budgeting task. I begin by briefly reviewing the benefit of using simu-
lations as a bridge between theory and praxis in the public administration classroom.
Two methods of implementation for budget simulations—solitary role-thinking and
collaborative role-playing—are then presented, as are the advantages and disadvantages
of each design. These evaluations draw from my observations as the instructor, as well as
student feedback. I further leverage the student feedback to offer a critical evaluation of
the use of such web-based budgeting simulations in the classroom. Finally, alternative
simulations will be briefly addressed, including those available to public administration
classrooms outside of the context of the United States of America. While my evaluation
is not exhaustive of all web-based simulations, it provides public administration
instructors options for introducing budget simulations in their classroom.
Using simulation to teach budgeting
The integration of theory and practice is essential to the study of public administration
(Godwin and Meek, 2016; Lynn, 1996). Regardless of whether courses are offered at the
undergraduate, masters, or doctoral level, students need to make connections between
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Teaching Public Administration 36(2)
theories of administration and real world practices that they will encounter on the job.
Masters in Public Administrations programs, in particular, provide important profes-
sional training for government administrators. Instructors are constantly faced, however,
with bridging the tensions that arise from the demands of the discipline and students. As
a discipline, motivated by a long-standing “intellectual crisis” (Ostrom, 1989), aca-
demics strive to develop new knowledge and establish a theoretical basis for an
administrative science. Students, on the other hand, often demand to know how their
learning applies to the “real world.”
Anyone that teaches introductory public administration courses and/or courses in
public budgeting knows that students find this subject dry and boring.1 Simulations
provide a sense of realism that is often demanded by students (Silvia, 2012), while also
reinforcing theoretical principals developed by scholars. Experiential learning through
simulations and role-playing offers students the opportunity to enhance program com-
petency, while also developing practical and analytical skills that help them make the
connection between theory and practice (Godwin and Meek, 2016; Figueroa, 2014).
Furthermore, bridging theory and practice helps students develop competencies in skills,
knowledge, and attitudes that are necessary as public sector professionals (Stout and
Holmes 2013). Simulations have been defined as “concentrated learning exercises
specifically designed to represent important real life activities by providing the learners
with the essence or essential elements of the real situation without the hazards, costs or
time constraints” (Wittich and Schuller, 1973: 578). They are well suited to the social
sciences (Queen, 1984)—including political science, public policy, and public admin-
istration—and have become the subject of much pedagogical research within these
disciplines (Chetkovich and Henderson, 2014; Goodman, 2008; McCarthy and Ander-
son, 2000; Schafer, 2016). Simulations increase student motivation to learn, enhance
information retention, and can be used to learn both content and process (Auerbach,
2013; Dekkers and Donatti, 1981; Smith and Boyer, 1996)
Though role-playing tends to be more effective, both role-playing and role-thinking
serve important functions. In role-thinking, students are asked to take on another mindset
and reason through decisions that they would make given a specific scenario. Role-
thinking is likely done in isolation; for example, through a writing prompt. This can
require little to no in-class time and less preparation than a role-play exercise, thus
making role-thinking exercises easier to implement in a course. While this helps students
to get into the mindset of an administrator in order to learn about budgeting, such role-
thinking can lead participants to make unrealistic, and at times absurd, decisions shaped
by the role they are assigned (Green and Armstrong, 2011; Rothbart and Hallmark,
1988). When tasked with a forecasting decision, role-thinkers performed no better than
simple guessing, regardless of whether they were novices or experts (Green and Arm-
strong 2011). An example of this approach would be a budget making exercise that I used
in one introductory course drawn from Dennis L. Dresang’s (2017) Public Adminis-
tration Workbook. The exercise taught students the principles of line-item budgeting by
placing them in the role of Deputy Budget Director who is creating a new budget for a
recently consolidated county library system. The students read about budgeting theory,
are given a memo outlining the rules that they need to follow in creating the budget and
Mallinson
113
the preferences of different stakeholders (e.g., staffing reductions and union-negotiated
salary changes),...
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