Abstract:

This paper deals with Serious Games (SGs) as a tool for stimulating an Entrepreneurial mindset into young adult students. Becoming an entrepreneur, beside personal aptitudes, requires the acquisition of a set of skills, attitudes and knowledge in order to exploit the business idea and run it. For this reason, Entrepreneurship Education has drawn attention in the last years and several studies attempted to identify not just which goals should be pursued but also the existing good practices in the field. These studies showed that education in this area still needs to be improved, not just from the point of view of the content, but also with reference to the teaching methodologies and tools adopted. In the light of these findings, we deem that fostering entrepreneurship could strongly benefit from an effective use of Serious Games (SGs) in the teaching/learning practice.

Therefore, three existing SGs (GoVenture- CEO, SimVenture and Hot Shot Business) will be described, compared and analysed with the purpose of underling the pedagogical features embedded in these games. In this paper, first we underline why they can be considered SGs , then we highlight the added value of teaching and/or learning with these tools, finally we conclude with useful advice for teachers, who want to consider the opportunity of using serious games in their teaching practice.

Keywords:

Serious Games, Entrepreneurship Education, Pedagogy, Technology Enhanced Learning.