2. Research Questions

2.1. Research Question 1: How to interactions between team members and different teams differ in board games versus in computer simulations?

Hypothesis: during the board game, discussions will be less serious, while during computer simulations, the players might be more serious. 
Also: Board games allow participants from different teams to be physically
closer
to each other, therefore could facilitate interactions between teams. Also, computer simulations can be isolating, in their difficulty and interface, which might discourage teams from interacting with each other in the real world. 

2.2. Research Question 2: Does MSP Challenge 2050  improve the participant's knowledge of MSP?

Hypothesis: Serious games represent a simulation of reality and therefore participants who were not experts in MSP (most) should report learning about the application of MSP. 

2.3 Research Question 3: Did MSP Challenge 2050 help participants of
a same
team build a common vision of MSP in their assigned country? 

Hypothesis: Stakeholders with competing interests can make collaboration more difficult, but if they can reach a consensus on the direction of MSP,
collaboration
will be easier. Given that participants in a team were given competing and complementary roles for the planning of their country, it would be interesting to see if playing the game helped create a cohesive common vision of what MSP needed to look like in their country.

3. Materials & Methods

3.1. MSP Challenge 2050 (Muhammad)
MSP helps maritime spatial planner in decision making and planning of resources through stakeholder’s mutual understanding. It formulates implementation plans with due consideration to natural ecology and stakeholder activates.  MSP provides a real-time simulator for an easy understanding of complex situations. MSP supports in planning and regulation of marine spatial claim that seems to be more difficult to plan otherwise on land. MSP experiment played at Memorial University of Newfoundland highlight this aspect by playing the board game (representing planning on the real sea) and computer game (representing real-time virtual simulator). The following sections describe methodological details of both the options.
 
3.1.1. Board Game
Board
game was played on board portraying resource and geographical location of an imaginary sea e.g. Rica Sea.  All participants (see section 3.2.1) were on a single table and planning the Rica sea space through mutual discussion. Figure ---- give details of Rica sea geographical details along with strategic planning of marine spatial claims by competing stakeholders.