Abstract:

Gamification represents one of the biggest technological trends of the last decade. The adoption of the gamification concept in the corporate sector (corporate gamification, playful business) is already advanced to such an extent that 70% of organisations in the Global 2000 used at least one gamified application or service. This technological novelty is the basis for innovative changes in education, commerce, marketing, entrepreneurship, health, governance, sustainability, etc. Moreover, numerous studies show that gamification also has various positive effects on education. Besides general psychological effects regarding learning engagement, cognition, motivation, and collaboration, it has been found that gamification positively influences learning outcomes towards problem-solving, creativity, critical thinking, or decision-making which belong to the so-called 21st Century Skills as part of the European Commission’s Agenda. In order to offer students the opportunity to use the potentials of gamification in later professional situations effectively, game-based learning techniques must already be integrated into the curricula and established as fundamental methods of business education.

For this reason, within the GAME4CHANGE project (https://g4c-nge.eu), a study programme for students in the field of Next Generation Entrepreneurship (NGE) is to be developed by business institutions of higher education from six European countries (NDL, BEL, GER, POL, SLO, UK), which will enable them to solve entrepreneurial challenges by using playful methods. In three different teaching modules on master level, students learn to develop their own ideas, develop sustainable and impactful business models as well as implement new leadership concepts and discuss them together in an international team. Gamification will be the content and method of the course at the same time. This turns students into game changers on the way to their own business. The overall aim of the GAME4CHANGE project is to provide contents, training materials, strategies, guidelines, methods and best practices in the field of corporate gamification and playful learning in business education. Educators shall become teaching innovators and be able to develop engaging, participatory, and inspiring learning scenarios by using digital technologies on their own for their students – the future leaders and managers.

The paper presents the current results of the Erasmus+ project GAME4CHANGE, which has been running since October 2022. This includes in particular the curriculum of the European study programme NGE as well as the structure and evaluation details of the train-the-trainer programme, which has been developed to increase the gamification readiness of university teachers. The three developed study modules of the NGE curriculum (Ideation, Business Modelling and Leadership) and the integrated gamification elements and digital tools will be presented in detail. The complete curriculum was piloted in various regular study programmes at five European business schools (Fachhochschule Dresden, GER; Doba Business School, SLO; Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences, NDL; WSB University, POL and University College Leuven-Limburg, BEL) in the winter semester of 2023 and evaluated by qualitative and quantitative methods (surveys and interviews). The resulting data and experiences, which serve as a basis for further development, are presented in the paper and presentation.

Keywords:

Gamification, Entrepreneurial Education, Playful Learning, International Cooperation.