Abstract:

Life Long Learning is an important aspect to improve productivity, effectiveness, efficiency and results within organizations. It is considered as basic for the personal and professional development of people and requires an adequate implementation methodology to make the learning process successful. One methodology of increasing implementation and use has been games.

Gamification is the use of design elements from games in context that are not games, taking profit of the sensorial experiences that the game is providing. Consequently, it allows improving the student’s experience, giving solution to problems, as well as acquiring, developing or improving an attitude or behavior. Under this definition, games have consolidated as an important tool for learning, also named Game Based Learning (GBL).

Previous studies have identified the positive consequences of GBL in class. Some of these to be highlighted are the increase in motivation, satisfaction and performance improvement. At a business level, existing studies conclude that the use of GBL improves employees’ self-regulation, facilitates new competences and skills acquisition and motivation. However, some studies found that GBL can have negative effects because of the increasing competitiveness, difficulty in evaluating the gamified tasks and the design of the activity itself.

Thus, the objective of this paper is to create a quiz game for the employees’ continuous learning in the public administration. Specifically, the experience of adapting a traditional game played in the Quality Management course to an online quiz for Quality managers and teachers of the Vocational Education Training will be explained. The aim of the creation of the game is twofold. First, because it will help managers and teachers to increase their motivation for quality management, as it is a requirement of the Catalan Govern. Second, because it will increase the knowledge on the topic, improving the services provided to stakeholders.

The methodology to create the game will be based on four main stages. First, the adaptation and creation of questions to cover all the topics of the Vocational Education Training centers. The existing experience in the Quality Management subject has been the basis for the questions as the majority has been adapted to the public administration. Second, the creation of the online platform outsourced to a specific group of students of games creation. The platform will allow playing alone or in group as well as reviewing questions of different levels individually or considering all the levels simultaneously. Third, a pilot test and implementation of the tool in different centers. Finally, an evaluation of the tool based on the users’ satisfaction and an analysis of the center improvement.

The expected results are an improvement both the knowledge and motivation of the users. In addition, an improvement of the overall service portfolio of the involved centers. These results are part of the expected contribution, as a general improvement will lead to a better provision of educational services and also, could mean a first step in the implementation of more updated methodologies to learn in different levels of the public administration.

Keywords:

Gamification, Quality Management, Life Long Learning, Public Administration, University, learning methodology.