The Relationship between a Business Simulator, Constructivist Practices, and Motivation toward Developing Business Intelligence Skills

Abstract

Developing Business Intelligence (BI) has been a top priority for enterprise executives in recent years. To meet these demands, universities need to prepare students to work with BI in enterprise settings. In this study, we considered a business simulator that offers students opportunities to apply BI and make top-management decisions in a system used by real-world professionals. The simulation-based instruction can be effective only if students are not discouraged by the difficulty of using the BI computer system and comprehending the complex BI subjects. Constructivist practices embedded in the business simulation are investigated to understand their potentials for helping the students to overcome the perceived difficulty. Consequently, it would enable instructors to more efficiently use the simulator by providing insights on its pedagogical practices. Our findings showed that the constructivist practices such as collaboration and subject integration positively influence active learning and meaningful learning respectively. In turn, both active learning and meaningful learning positively influence business intelligence motivational behavior. These findings can be further used to develop a robust learning environment in BI classes.

Business Simulation Games in Higher Education: A Systematic Review of Empirical Research

“…One of the selected studies [46] also revealed knowledge gains in business processes and basic business concepts using ERPsim. Other studies confirmed the positive effect of using ERPsim games on business processes and supply chain knowledge [83,86]. The ENTRExplorer game had a positive effect on students' accounting knowledge and business processes knowledge (Fernando [52]).…”

“…Analysis of the selected studies shows the absence of a uniform agreed evaluation framework to assess the impact of using simulation games in learning [124]. Instructors use different assessment methods to evaluate the simulation activity performance of students and other evaluation methods (i) Instructors used game results (profit gains) to indicate better game performance [39,42,79,80,83] (ii) Reflection reports submitted by the students act as a formative assessment for the game activity [19,66]. Reflection reports usually contain questions related to students' opinions on the simulation activities, their perceived gains from participating in the activity, their intention to use it again, decisions they made, and the mistakes they wanted to rectify in the next session (iii) Exam grades are used as performance indicators as objective measures to assess students' knowledge gains [43,79] During the pregame stage, questionnaires are the most frequently used assessment tools.…”

“…They observed students' active participation and social interaction and reported an overall positive impact on interactive skills. Other reported that the interactive skills enhanced by playing BSGs are communication, persuasion, and conflict resolution (i) Positive effects were reported concerning students' engagement with the simulation activity [43,46,62,65,67,68,76,83] (ii) Increased motivation toward playing simulation [4,41,42,64,65,69,84] (iii) Higher satisfaction levels with the course content [4,42,47,65,84] (iv) Increased self-efficacy [39,50,64,66,68,76] (v) Increased self-awareness and confidence [38,39,68,91] To conclude, most of the selected papers reveal positive effects regarding the use of computer simulation games on learning outcomes. Figure 12 shows the most common learning outcomes of BSGs identified in the selected papers of this review.…”