Abstract:

The new, more technological generation of students, to whom the digital world carries the same importance as the real one, brings a new challenge to higher education, since it is more difficult to gain their attention and ensure their engagement. The solution may lie in integrating education with immersive technology to improve the learning of scientific content, since the correlation between the fun time they had in the metaverse and the e-learning that will be done through the metaverse makes it attractive. (Kouveliotis, K., & Mansuri, M., 2023).

The article explains the construction and application of a digital case study for a graduate course in Strategic Planning and Control, in which students will use virtual worlds to create a participatory budget.

Teaching case studies play a key role in education by promoting development of a practical approach to learning theoretical concepts by applying them to concrete situations in the real workplace context. By allowing students to apply concepts learned in the classroom to real-world scenarios, it goes beyond mere memorization and encourages a deep understanding that foster professionals to make informed decisions. This learning methodology also promotes collaboration among students and prepares them to face the challenges of the real working world.

The aim of the case is to replicate a reality in a digital environment in an immersive way so that students can have the most realistic experience with the case. The article is divided into three parts:
1) construction of digital environments;
2) application of the case in a classroom context;
3) evaluation of the case.

In the first phase, the research team created two 2D digital spaces, representing a wood treatment factory and a pencil factory. The learning objective is the development of a participatory budget for each company, with the collaboration of the various departments within the company as well as with the external client/supplier.

The second phase consists of a 3-hour class, in which students explore the case through the 2D immersive space and interact with its objects and tasks, which will provide them with the required content for developing the required budget. After data collection, they will be transported to an immersive meeting room, where each working group in the class (divided into two companies, with three departments each) will be responsible for discussing the details needed for preparing the consolidated budget.

The impact of the case on learning will be assessed through observation, questionnaires and interviews. Observation will take place throughout the process of student interaction with the case and the space design. Questionnaires will be administered to the students at the beginning and at the end of the experiment and will be used to collect data on their perception of the benefits of using these immersive tools in their knowledge gain. Interviews will be conducted with the main instructor and other teaching staff to gather feedback on the implementation of the study and analyse the areas that can be improved in the case.

With this study, we hope to explore the benefits of using immersive worlds to provide richer and more meaningful learning experience to economy and finance students.

References:
[1] Kouveliotis, K., & Mansuri, M. (2023). Role of Metaverse in E-Learning and Its Contribution to Improving the Quality of Education. International Conference on E-Learning, 189–194.

Keywords:

Higher education, Teaching finance, Immersive Learning, Case Studies, Participatory Budgeting, Strategic Planning.