Abstract:

Empowering higher education students with transversal competencies that can ease their transition to the labour market is a growing concern among entities with responsibilities in education. Transversal competencies refer to generic aspects related to knowledge, skills, and capabilities that any graduate must have achieved to enable a seamless transition and integration in the professional life. The development of transversal competences is a timely and generalized concern among educators, employers, students and policy makers, integrating the agendas and debates for public policies concerning the future of work and qualifications.

Soft skills are personal attributes which enable effective individual interactions and, accordingly, enhance career prospects and job performance. Game Based Learning (GBL) is especially suited to soft skills training due to the way soft skills are developed.

Many educators understand that they need to engage their students by somehow adapting their subject material and teaching style to arouse intrigue. GBL is defined as an innovative learning tool that bridge the physical and digital learning environments. Students transform into players and game’s unique nature eliminates certain learning barriers while encouraging the development of certain transversal competences as critical thinking and interaction within the group.
To encourage a greater discussion on the benefits and challenges of GBL to develop transversal skills, in this paper we present an applied state of the art of examples of application of games on a Higher education context in the European context. For that, a bibliometric analysis is performed in order to enhance future HEI strategies regarding the implementation of GBL into overall education subjects and courses and not only in entrepreneurship related fields. Several educational policy implications emerge from the current analysis.

Keywords:

Game based learning, transversal skills, new methodologies, Higher Education Institutions.