Université du Québec en Outaouais
M.Sc. candidate
Supervisor: Clément Chion
Start: 2018-01-07
End: 2020-04-30

Project

Do mental models influence stakeholder decisions in climate change contexte
The emergence of participatory forest management approaches to support sustainable development has highlighted new challenges in collective decision-making such as unequal power balance, information asymmetry, conflicts or lack of representativeness. In addition, the uncertainty created by climate change on forest management reinforces these issues. Serious games are often presented as an interesting alternative to support the decision-making process under such conditions. In order to verify the impact of serious games on the quality of the stakeholders' decision, we supported and followed a group using the participatory approach for the forest management of a recreational and tourist park of 1800 forests ha in Quebec. Our game uses a simulation forest model and role plays to support discussions, negotiations and collective decision-making. Like many action researches projects, our experience has been designed to achieve two levels of objectives. The first level aims to support consultation, helping participants in their decision-making by offering them the opportunity to interact with the territory simulation model. The second level relates to research design and aims to establish the impacts of serious games on collective decision-making using mental models approach. Finally, to be realistic, the game was designed in the context of climate change.

Keywords

decision making, socio-ecological systems