SCALE user guide

Profiles and variables

How student roles, profile types, and dynamic variables shape every simulation.

Profiles

A profile is the student-specific role or operating context used by the simulation. It can represent a business, public agency, project, portfolio, team, or another entity appropriate to the course.

A student has one profile per classroom. Profiles may carry values forward from one challenge to the next.

Profile types

A profile type is a reusable starting configuration. Two students may face the same challenge with different capacities, resources, costs, strengths, or constraints because they use different profile types.

Dynamic variables

SCALE does not hard-code one universal form. Instructors configure variables for:

• Profile type: Starting characteristics shared by a kind of profile
• Profile: Student-specific values
• Challenge: Information students know before deciding
• Decision: Choices students submit
• Outcome: Shared conditions applied during calculation

Variables can be numbers, text, or selections with required values, defaults, ranges, and descriptions.

Why this matters

The same decision can produce different results for different profiles. That creates useful variation for discussion without requiring a different challenge for every student.