Abstract
One of the main strategies for fostering the entrepreneurial mindset in students has been the development of training activities inside and outside classrooms using serious games. Our study makes a brief description regarding five serious games initiatives that intend to promote and facilitate entrepreneurship education for different educational stages. Furthermore, we discuss the main key benefits and challenges by the introduction of serious games in the learning process. We concluded by identifying that serious games have the potentiality of improving the learning process by providing an immersive experience for students that increases their motivation and potentiates the acquisition of multidisciplinary competencies. However, there are some challenges that should be properly considered and mitigated, namely in terms of assessing learning goals, integration with didactical systems and support for different styles of learning.
TopBackground
According to Belloti et al. (2014), entrepreneurship is “a personal skill and motivation which draws a person to engage his abilities and efforts in the creation of new products and services”. The European Commission defines entrepreneurship as “an individual's creative capacity, independently or within an organization, to identify an opportunity and to pursue it in order to produce new value or economic success” (Carvalho et al., 2012). Entrepreneurship education is often seen as a way to foster economic growth and to deal with economic crisis (Allegra, 2013). However, entrepreneurship education is often pointed as immature, not sufficiently integrated in schools curricula and not adequately addressed by national policies, particularly in European countries (Allegra et al., 2013; Belloti et al., 2014).
Key Terms in this Chapter
Simulations: A simulation game assumes typically a form of video or computer game that is concerned with playing out realistic situations in game settings.
Technology Enhanced Learning: The adoption of technology in order to promote a better classroom experience for students or increase e-learning pedagogic activities.
Entrepreneurship: The capacity and willingness to develop, organize and manage a business venture along with any of its risks in order to make a profit. The most obvious example of entrepreneurship is the starting of new businesses.
Role-Playing Games: A game in which the player assumes the role of a character, generally in a fantasy or science fiction setting, that can interact within the game's imaginary world.
Serious Games: A game designed for any purpose rather than entertainment.
Flash: A popular authoring software developed by Macromedia that is used to create vector graphics based animation programs with full-screen navigation interfaces.
Learning Management System: A software system that delivers courseware plus e-tutoring over the Internet. It is typically also called as Course Management System, Pedagogical Platform or E-Learning Platform.