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Thesis-1985-OBroin.pdf (7.92 MB)

An approach to teaching computer simulation

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thesis
posted on 2017-06-22, 08:36 authored by Sean O'Broin
The thesis proposes a method for teaching computer simulation. The method involves the use of a large-scale real-life project which had been carried out by the author on a consultancy basis. This project has been developed into a teaching package which is intended for a wide spectrum of students, thus little knowledge of mathematics is assumed. This method has been found to be the most successful one by the author in over twenty years of experience with different types of students and this particular package has been tried successfully with a group of students in Hong Kong. The.real system and the relevant problems involved are first described and considered. From this an extremely simplified version is then extracted. Solution methods are considered and the usefulness of simulation demonstrated. The tools required for a simulation are then introduced, the simulation language used being GPSS which is considered by the author to be the most appropriate on the basis of ease of learning and future usefulness. In a series of steps realistic complications are added to this simple system while in parallel the required extra elements of the simulation language are introduced building up to the final simulation of the real system by the students who will by then have a thorough grasp of GPSS. They will also have had the experience of developing a full-scale simulation model. At this stage the students will be in a position to apply their knowledge and experience to problems in other fields and the author hopes that the lecturer will be motivated to develop similar projects for teaching in other areas.

History

School

  • Science

Department

  • Mathematics Education Centre

Publisher

© S. O'Broin

Publisher statement

This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Publication date

1985

Notes

A Doctoral Thesis. Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the award of Doctor of Philosophy of Loughborough University.

Language

  • en

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