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Role-playing simulations are frequently claimed to be effective pedagogical tools in the teaching of international relations (IR); however, there is a surprising lack of empirical evidence on their classroom utility. The assessment of simulations remains mostly anecdotal, and some recent research has found little to no statistically significant improvements in quantitative measures of academic performance among students who participated in them [for example, International Studies Perspectives (2006), vol. 7, pp. 395; International Studies Perspectives (2008), vol. 9, pp. 75–89]. Scant research has been conducted on how role-playing simulations might affect students' perceptions of the instructor's teaching. This paper investigates whether a simulation had statistically significant effect on students' exam scores in an IR course or on student teaching evaluation scores.

Instead of always teaching students how to succeed—as is the norm in higher education—it might also be useful to teach them about failure. Understanding failure (that is, why actors fail to reach common objectives in inter-group settings) gives students deeper insight into how to resolve global problems, and the conditions under which success can be achieved. This enhances student awareness of complexity in world affairs, including the nature of inter-group relations. Simulations are a good way to teach students about the possibility of failure, and how to learn from it, because they allow students to go through the learning process on their own. In this article I discuss how a simulation I ran on Middle Eastern politics can be used as an example of how to instruct students about failure as much as about success.