Abstract:

The use of serious Games in business education is not a new one. This field has used games and simulations since the 1950s up until today. The term “Serious Games” became an expression as well attempting to capture and combine the engaging components of video games and educational games. Bringing the massive size, resource, and technology of the video games industry to the development of business, educational, health, and public policy games offerd explosive business gaming growth potential (Yilmaz, Oren, & Aghaee, 2006).

The project used to gather information for this paper aimed to introduce a serious game as part of the learning process related to project management (PMBOK). The game had been used with good results in Switzerland and the assumption is that this would be interesting to try elsewhere. We understood that there would be challenges in doing so, especially because it would challenge traditional approaches to learning in higher education. Where before the knowledge was passed on from teacher to student through a teacher centered approach, the students today prefer a higher grade of autonomy and participation (SOURCE). The digitization of higher education makes this approach more accessible, but it also creates challenges in a system with strong traditions. Most traditional approaches to learning such as behaviorism, cognitivism and constructivism have a focus based on the significance for the way learning is delivered or to ensure learning. In this tradition the physical presence of a teacher has always held the most prominent role. In the emerging learning theories such as Connectivism, TPACK, SAMR and Navigationism, focus has changed towards a combination of digital tools, tutors and the importance of networks as well as the ability to navigate in these networks and utilize the outcomes.

The focus of this paper is to address some of these challenges, discuss them and suggest ways to deal with them. The aim is to create an environment for learning which is as close to the real world as possible. We suggest this can be done through the use of serious games in general and simulations in particular. Although many challenges will have to be addressed in order to achieve the intended learning objectives. Below we have listed six areas in which we had to work in order to use a serious game for learning project management. The challenges will be presented chronologically and suggestions on how to overcome them are presented in the last part of the paper, followed by suggestions for further work on this approach:
- Different approaches to learning on a metalevel.
- Shared understanding of terminology
- How to introduce a serious game/simulation in a class?
- Prior game experience concerning both tutors and students.
- Prior experience with simulations.
- Base knowledge of the tutors?

Keywords:

Serious Games, project management, business education, student centered approach.