Undertaking: A business game for 21st-century undergraduate skills Academic Article in Scopus uri icon

abstract

  • © The Authors, 2019. All Rights Reserved.The purpose of this research was to assess students¿ perceptions of learning effectiveness of a board game having synergy with a business simulator. The game teaches students how to integrate interdisciplinary knowledge while developing ¿21st-century skills¿ like collaboration, communication, information literacy, decision-making, and problem-solving. ¿Interactive cognitive complexity theory¿ suggests that interactive games are more effective than other instructional methods because they simultaneously engage students' affective and cognitive processes. (Tennyson & Jorczak, 2008). Board games are enjoyable and promote team collaboration and communication. On one hand, board game scenarios and premises are very dissimilar to business realities, on the other hand, business simulators are useful in developing decision-making, problem-solving, and information literacy skills, but their formats on computer screens may seem cold and distant. This project extracts the best features of both board games and business simulators to create an exci ting learning experience in a new game called ¿Undertaking.¿ Qualitative research was conducted using post-game interviews with 130 students. Then, a pre-game and post-game surveys were designed and tested based on validated scales for 21st-century skills (Chai et al., 2015; Cevik, 2019; Soh, Osman & Arsad, 2012). The quantitative data will be gathered with pre-game and post-game surveys applied to 150 students during November 2019. The participants of the research are business undergraduate freshmen students at the Guadalajara campus of Tecnologico de Monterrey (ITESM) in Mexico. The qualitative and first quantitative data demonstrated the positive impact of Undertaking on the students¿ perceptions of their 21st-century competencies. After the game, students reported a better understanding of how to solve problems, make decisions, communicate and, work collaboratively among others.

publication date

  • January 1, 2019