abstract
- Serious games are a fundamental tool to promote learning in a playful way and to develop a wide range of cognitive skills such as complex thinking. In this study we sought to first analyze the perceived achievement of complex thinking sub-competencies by majors, and we also aimed to investigate mean differences in the group of students coming from computer science and engineering related majors and by gender of the participants in complex thinking sub-competencies. 417 learners were part of this study, of which 65.7% were male and 34.3% were female. It was found that medical students perceived higher achievement in systems, scientific and innovative thinking, while data science and industrial engineering students excelled in critical thinking. Statistically significant differences were found between engineering and computer science careers and systemic thinking, being higher in engineering. Likewise, significant differences by gender were found in all sub-competencies except innovative thinking, where women outperformed men. The findings are discussed in light of the evidence in the literature on the subject. © 2025 by authors.