Deploying Serious Games for Management in Higher Education: lessons learned and good practices

Abstract

Deployment of serious games (SGs) and their insertion in higher education (HE) curricula is still low. The literature lacks papers describing deployment of SGs in HE critically showing educational benefits and providing guidelinesand good practices for their use. With the present work, we intend to make a first step in this direction, by reporting our experience in using state of the art managerial SGs in MSc engineering/business courses in four different European universities. In order to describe and analyse the educational characteristics and effectiveness of each game, we propose to use two models that we have straightforwardly extracted from two major pedagogical paradigms: the Bloom's revised cognitive learning goals taxonomy and the Kolb's experiential learning cycle. Based on our experience, we also propose a set of lessons and good practices to incentivize and better support deployment of SGs in HE courses

The Effect of Simulations and Games on Learning Objectives in Tertiary Education: A Systematic Review

“…Although all of the studies in our dataset somehow focus on learning objectives and simulations or games, only 29 reviewed articles explicitly refer to learning theories as conceptualized, for instance, by Bloom [1] or Romiszowski [7]. However, in labeling the declared learning goals in the articles, we found that simulations and games are deployed to develop a diverse range of cognitive and communicative skills: 37% related the simulation or game to productive cognitive skills (for example [27], [29], [30], [31]), 16% procedural knowledge (for instance, [28], [32], [33], [34]), and 12% productive interactive skills (such as [27], [30], [34]). Important to note is that most studies mentioned several learning objectives relevant to their research.…”

“…Thirteen studies claimed the role of the instructor is vital for achieving learning objectives through simulations and games [26], [28], [29], [30], [31], [32], [33], [35], [36], [37], [38], [39], [40]. Baalsrud Hauge et al [33] show that the role of the teachers becomes more important when the emphasis on abstraction increases. In their meta-analysis, Wouters & Van Oostendorp [41] identify that the role of instructional support enhances learning, especially when learning objectives involve (higher order) skills, and in discussing and selecting new information.…”

“…Six studies found course integration an enabling factor in the effectiveness of a simulation or game [29], [30], [32], [33], [35], [47]. For instance, in Loughborough University the business game Venture Strategy was played by 70 senior-year students during the module 'Business Model'.…”

Collaborative Serious Games for Awareness on Shared Resources in Supply Chain Management

“…Thus, a key to a successful implementation of shared resources concept in supply chains is to increase the awareness [18]. Due to its high motivation factor and the possibility to let the participants play an active role, the use of experiential learning forms has been increasing within education at all levels [19,20,21]. With SCM and OR education, serious games are regularly used to overcome the gap between theory and practices.…”

Approaches to Reengineering Digital Games

“…Based on this information, the next step would be to identify to what extent a game can be reengineered and which of the gaming features need to be changed/ adapted/ repurposed [16]. Typical criteria for selection include various factors such as: coverage of the needed educational topics; matching between the course's learning objectives and the game's features; costs; usability; quality of user assessment and provision of feedback; degree of freedom for players and teachers; the game's learning curve, difficulty level and long-term playability; competences and effort needed on the teacher's side; relation of game and learning mechanics [13,15,17].…”