Abstract:

Aim of the research was to improve effectiveness of university education. With the use of a new digital approach – applied by a stock market game - the corporate finance related skills of the students have been enhanced. However, the traditional class room training can hardly be replaced entirely by games. This research analyzes the possibility of knowledge improvements due to the implementation of a gamification approach. Therefore, the authors implemented a trading game using a real trader workstation. The concept forced the students to use fundamental market and technical market analyzing methods. The case of the course corporate finance and management accounting at the University of Applied Sciences Berlin is been presented to demonstrate the usefulness of game based learning concepts. An empirical analysis confirms that the students improve their knowledge, like the challenge and are more concentrated if, beneath classical lectures, a game is applied. Doing the course without the trading game is seen as ineffective and of less value. Eventually, based on the analysis and classroom observations improvement opportunities have been derived in order to further increase the learning performance.

Used tools:
To support the learning process of the students - without lowering the high level of the course – the authors use a trading game. The game is performed with the professional Interactive Brokers Trader Workstation.

Sample and data collection process:
Sample of this paper are the students of the course Corporate Finance and management accounting at the Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft Berlin. The students are usually in the first year of the Master of Business Administration and Engineering study (MBA&E). The course is regularly separated into groups of 25-30 students. This semester 45 students are registered in two courses. 44 students participated (81% of the sample). A questionnaire was used to collect the data during the last week of the course. The advantage of a questionnaire strategy is that it provides standardized answers that make it simple to compile data. Because the topic of the paper is a very complex one, quantitative (5 point Likert scales) as well as qualitative data were collected to triangulate findings. The collected data were analyzed with the objective of establishing links between gamification and improved skills of the students. Furthermore, the data were analyzed by SPSS and MS Excel.

Measures:
To test the influence of the stock market game on the student abilities the participants were asked regarding different topics. The used items for the quantitative analysis were influenced by the work of Ak (2012); Woo (2013); Kim-Bang, Wisdom and Labat (2011); Fu, Su, Yu (2009) and Yee, Ducheneaut, Nelson (2012). The quantitative clusters were represented by 5 scales: Concentration, Challenge, Autonomy, Immersion and Knowledge.

Keywords:

Game based learning, gamification, business learning, structure, learning performance, digital learning.