Abstract:

The traditional methods of teaching the discipline, although appropriate for the dissemination of fundamental knowledge, do not provide the optimal platform for students to practice decision-making as if they were running a real company. On the other hand, previous studies have pointed out that simulation games could improve students' motivation to learn, but these studies have been directed mainly to teachers or students of primary and secondary education and do not have models of adoption by users.

Currently the Simulation Games are applied to many subject domains, as they allow students to engage in decision making processes, and may facilitate as the learning experience as the organizations management trough application of strategies in a virtual environment and train themselves in models of decision-making and of technology acceptance. The business and management institutions in higher education have been increasingly using educational simulation games in recent years, factors influencing the continuing use of business simulation games (BSG) by higher-education students are worth probing into. The business simulation games help the students prepare for their professional careers with real-life scenarios in which several subjects are integrated within one study discipline, however, previous studies on have concluded that improved student performance may not be the primary benefit of using BSGs, due to mixed results between the complexity level, the learning motivation, and work teams for the decision support. To address these issues, it is important to understand the relationship between the variables that shape the student profile and performance with BSG-facilitated learning.

Assessing the performance of the teams that participate in simulation games is a special area of evaluation of the learning performance, because the teams not only achieve the game aims, but also evaluate the effects of the decision-making process. However, the relationship between individual or team learning experiences and problem-solving strategies in simulation games is still not clear in the literature. Within this broad scope, there has been strong interest in identifying which factors influence on the relationship among the learning motivation, student satisfaction and the climate of teamwork from the perspective of learning, as well as the perceived attractiveness and perception of the ease to use from the perspective of the level of complexity and the information quality.

This study identifies in the literature, the determining constructs of the different models of acceptance of technology over time and their relationship, as well as the factors that influence teamwork. The results show an integrated research model that considers the variables selected in the literature analysis, focused on the assessing of learning performance and the student's intention to continue using business simulation games in the future, to define the effectiveness of the use of the business games.

Keywords:

Business games, TAM, teamwork, learning performance, complexity, learning motivation.