Developing self-management and teamwork using digital games in 3D simulations

Abstract

Emerging technologies are providing opportunities for designing new learning environments, especially environments in which students can learn by putting their skills into practice. Knowledge about the development of these experiences needs to be accumulated and processed so that they can be integrated effectively into training programmes. In this study we describe how transferable skills such as self-management and teamwork have been developed by 70 Spanish students of Education and Marketing. The learning experience comprised a serious game designed in a 3D simulation environment. For the analysis, two analytical rubrics were taken as references. Descriptive statistics and non-parametric tests such as Mann-Whitney U and Spearman rho were conducted for comparison and correlation analysis. Our results showed that the students performed well and had a positive perception of the suitability of using the simulation environment for the development of transferable skills. We also found that women performed better than men in activities involving teamwork, especially communication tasks. IntroductionLearning environments based on three-dimensional (3D) simulations are suitable platforms for enabling students to put their knowledge into practice in an integrated way. Part of this knowledge is a set of skills that can be implemented in a wide range of personal and professional situations. These so-called transferable skills are an important component of university curricula that has emerged from the construction of the new European Higher Education Area (EHEA). The construction of didactic methods for developing and evaluating these skills represents a challenge for the majority of higher education (HE) institutions.Emerging technologies are providing excellent opportunities for designing training environments in which learners can develop professional activities that require them to act, take decisions and/or make constructions collaboratively. Environments based on advanced technology enable simulations of professional situations to be created in which students can practice their skills safe in the knowledge that any errors they make will have no repercussions in real life. This safe and controlled process enables the students' learning activities to be analysed, evaluated and reoriented. The simulations can transform an academic activity into a professional environment by controlling certain parameters that allow educational objectives to be achieved. It may be said that the strategies for simulating the professional environment create an educative virtuality when they are also accompanied by a pedagogical strategy that is intended to meet specific teaching objectives.Serious games (technological game-based applications with an educational purpose as well as an entertainment one) via 3D simulations are useful for putting learners in situations where they can acquire transferable competencies. The great potential of digital games does not lie in their gaming characteristics but in the fact that their attributes can be...

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