Using games to develop personal skills required for strategic decision making

Abstract

Games play an important role in education by submerging students within the process and making them feel as direct participants of an event with ability to affect the outcomes of a situation. Situation analysis, making and discussion of decisions, and interactions among the gamers, including formal interaction, collaboration or competition, help developing social and management skills of the participants. The paper describes use of dilemmas and table games during the short course of “Education gamification” with 50 students. Each of the dilemmas was a problem description related to the use of innovative technology. Teams were made, and each team member received a prompt card to assist in building the line of his or her behavior. The prompts were designed in a way to promote discussion. At the end the team was making a decision that considered interests of all stakeholders. During the course several most popular economy-related strategic games were used. These games allow students acting as professional economists that try to run their projects in timely and most efficient manner. Games develop abilities to make strategic decisions, improve management skills, force thinking and situation analysis. Authors collected statistics on management strategies used by the gamers, and on making final decisions. Erroneous actions and winning strategies are analyzed. Authors collected and reviewed feedback from the gamers, and developed recommendations regarding improvement of game organization process. © The Authors, 2019. All Rights Reserved.