Abstract:

Job design deals with the effect of work on the working person, a central content focus of the study module "Work and Organizational Psychology" in the bachelor's degree program in psychology at the University of Hagen. The critical teaching of theoretical basics of psychological work design, which is mainly done by reading and discussing relevant theories and research results, is unfortunately mostly lacking in the experience of practical job design training during these studies. This can only be achieved by experiencing a simulated training situation, trying out job design skills, and experiencing the effects of different forms of job design. Nevertheless, confrontation, one's own experience, trying out one's job design skills on the one hand, and intensive reflection on what is experienced during such a work design simulation are essential prerequisites for the acquisition of appropriate action competencies. The primary learning and training objective of the planned didactic innovation is to acquire qualifications based on competencies and skills in work psychology in the sense of analyzing, evaluating, and designing work tasks according to defined human criteria, in addition, to going through the corresponding job design simulation task and the subsequent reflection should lead to a deeper and better understanding of the differentiation between structural and behavioral prevention, which is central in occupational health psychology, as well as condition-related and person-related interventions. Through minor adjustments, other learning objectives can also be focused on. A systematic work analysis also develops methodological qualifications based on corresponding competencies and skills. The students have to carry out following a work task they have experienced themselves. This paper describes a novel approach toward integrating work task simulation-based training of skills related to configuring relevant features for work design with the Qualifications-Based Learning Model (QBLM) approach. For this purpose, the theoretical background and the already existing tools are described in this paper. Hertel's Computer Store application from 2003 is used as the basis for the simulation. Here, a single, isolated work task is simulated. Based on this, a concept for the simulation is presented.

A central element of the planned applied learning game is the students' own experience of well and poorly designed work tasks in terms of the specific manifestation of psychologically relevant work characteristics. For this purpose, the students will process one or more specifically designed work tasks that are digitally simulated. Psychological stresses, such as interruptions, and time pressure, are thus made tangible. Therefore, our previous paper presented the overall concept for the applied learning game and the concept for the single packages of the applied learning game in more detail. Those packages are sub-applications of the main applied learning game in which the students have to deal with different tasks simultaneously. The psychological stresses and other parameters will be measured and experienced in those packages. In this paper, we focus on the final concept and the technical realization of the applied learning game. A concept will be presented and further, a detailed overview of the implementation and evaluation will be presented in this paper. The paper concludes with a summary and the remaining challenges of the approach.

Keywords:

QBLM, Qualifications-Based Learning, Learning Analytics, Work Task Simulation, Work Design, Serious/Applied Gaming, Applied Games, Game-based Learning.