Challenges of Serious Games for Improving Students’ Management Skills on Decision Making

Challenges of Serious Games for Improving Students’ Management Skills on Decision Making

Jannicke Baalsrud Hauge (BIBA Bremer Institut für Produktion und Logistik GmbH, Germany), Gabriele Hoeborn (Universität Wuppertal-IZ3, Germany) and Jennifer Bredtmann (Universität Wuppertal-IZ3, Germany)
Copyright: © 2012 |Pages: 18
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-0149-9.ch049

Abstract

Serious Games have been used in civil education since the 1950s. The first serious games were business games aiming to improve the skills required for decision making processes. In 1964, the INTOP simulation game was the first game representing a complete enterprise operating in different markets (Rohn, 1995). Management games as a subgroup of serious games are still widely in use, especially within vocational training of managers. Since that time, a variety of games have been developed and proved successful for the mediation of skills in complex systems (Windhoff, 2001). Serious games are also widely used in primary and secondary education nowadays. Children learn excellently by playing them. In contrast, learning by gaming is often seen as not serious enough within higher education and vocational training. Consequently, gaming as a teaching method is still often excluded in many curricula. Hence, students lack the experience of active knowledge acquirement during lessons and thus encounter a barrier for successful participation in serious games later.
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Impact On The Needed Competencies Of Engineers

Preparing an organization for the new requirements requested by dynamic networks is not only a matter of finding suitable technical solutions, but also that of qualifying the employees and preparing organizational structure. Indeed, successful co-operation does not only rely on a seamless information flow between all partners, but also on the ability of the participating organizations to learn and to act in a dynamic environment. Such a living and learning organization can be characterized by the possibility of and room for the development of creativity and individuality in and outside the organization (Fuchs-Kittowski, 1998). Important parameters involve deriving information out of the process of self-organization as well as collecting and processing information from outside the organization (Fuchs-Kittowski, 1998).

As mentioned in the introduction, the mismatch between required and offered skills and competencies is a problem in a dynamical environment, and thus, it is common sense today, that there is a need for continuous learning (OECD, 2004).

The figure below shows the relation of age and enrolment in formal education. It is obvious, that this needs to be changed for experienced employees.

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