Timo Lainema

The Design Principles for Flow Experience in Educational Games

Abstract Educational games have to be well designed to incorporate learner engagement, an integral component of educational effectiveness. One foundation of designing educational engagement is flow theory. This article presents a flow framework that describes the building blocks of flow experience that can be used to design appealing and effective educational games for formal and informal learning contexts. The framework provides the principles for good educational game design, based upon associative, cognitive and situative learning theories, including engagement and pedagogic elements with a focus upon feedback and flow principles. Furthermore, the paper clarifies the relation between the flow experience and immersion. We tested the flow framework in the RealGame case study, which revealed that the RealGame business simulation game was well designed and effective at engaging students. We found that the university students’ flow experience in the game was high and the findings indicated that sense of control, clear goals and challenge-skill dimensions of flow scored the highest, but a rewarding experience and feedback dimensions also scored highly by the students. Overall, the results indicate that flow framework is a useful tool in studying game-based learning experiences.

Applying constructivist approach to educational business games: Case REALGAME

Business organizations and their employees face ever-increasing complexity and accelerating changes. This brings along the need for training models that can transmit knowledge and skills needed in this kind of environment. Business process understanding is especially required. This article evaluates business games in the light of constructivism, a view of learning emphasizing the need to anchor training to everyday activities and concrete contexts, and introduces a new computer-based business game. The purpose of this construction is to give the business game participants a realistic view of business processes and thus enhance participant business process perception. The primary aim of the construction is to present business processes to game participants by providing a natural representation of the real world and a case-based learning environment that fosters reflective practice. Although this article does not explicitly describe a geographically distributed game case, it introduces a game construction based on Internet transmission protocol that can also be used in a distributed manner. But as such, the article argues for the use of techniques that support continuously processed and Internet-based gaming simulations.

Applying an authentic, dynamic learning environment in real world business

This paper describes a dynamic computer-based business learning environment and the results from applying it in a real-world business organization. We argue for using learning tools, which not only provide realistic and complex models of reality, but are also are authentic, facilitate continuous problem solving and meaningful learning, and embed learning in social experience. We describe a continuously processed business simulation game, which differs from the majority of business games in the way it is processed. Two company in-house training sessions are then introduced. In these sessions the learning environment was configured to describe the real-world environment of the case company. The empirical part of the paper analyses the findings from these in-house training sessions. We conclude that dynamicity and interactivity of the business learning tool are valuable characteristics if we want to be able to authentically represent the complex, causal, time-bound nature of business organizations.

Advancing Acquisition of Business Know-How: Critical Learning Elements

Abstract The turbulent business environment requires business expertise from ever-larger personnel groups. The required business know-how is a combination of knowledge and several different skills, and it should provide the learners with an overall view of the functioning of a business organization as a whole. Moreover, while work is increasingly becoming a team and group effort, the potential strength of collaboration should also be presented in the learning environment. In this paper we first identify elements that advance the acquisition of relevant business know-how. Second, we describe how these elements can be embedded in a time intensive business simulation game, and present two simulation training sessions. Third, we analyze how the participants in the case trainings reflect on the elements that advance the acquisition of business knowledge. The analysis is qualitative by nature, utilizing simulation game participants’ answers on questions concerning the different elements. Our results show that with dynamic simulations it is possible to support the team learning process, and enhance collaboration skills and overall understanding of the functioning of business organizations.

Perspective Making

Constructivism has recently gained popularity, although it is not a completely new learning paradigm. Much of the work within e-learning, for example, uses constructivism as a reference “discipline” (explicitly or implicitly). However, some of the work done within the simulation gaming (SG) community discusses what the basic assumptions and implications of constructivism for SG are. Constructivism provides one theoretical approach to the use of computer-based systems and, as such, deserves careful consideration. The authors view is that SG researchers—as SG is a transdisciplinary field—should seek to do research that is acceptable in terms of other disciplines and need to go back to the original texts in the reference discipline to gain genuine appreciation of the arguments being proposed. This is an aim of this article. Another aim of this article is to provide theoretical tools with which to enhance SG argumentation development and debriefing.

Flow framework for analyzing the quality of educational games

The challenge of educational game design is to develop solutions that appeal to as many players as possible, but are still educationally effective. One foundation for analyzing and designing educational engagement is the flow theory. This article presents a flow framework that describes the dimensions of flow experience that can be used to analyze the quality of educational games. The framework also provides design-support for producing good educational games, because it can be used to reveal ways to optimize learning effects and user experience. However, the framework only works as a link between educational theory and game design, which is useful for game analysis but does not provide the means for a complete game design. To evaluate the elements included in the proposed framework, we analyzed university student’s experiences in participating in a business simulation game. We found that the students’ flow experience in the game was high and the findings indicated that sense of control, clear goals and challenge-skill dimensions of flow scored the highest. Overall, the results indicate that the flow framework is a useful tool to aid the analysis of game-based learning experiences.

Formation of Novice Business Students' Mental Models Through Simulation Gaming

Studies on students’ perceptions of learning in business simulations often suggest that students like simulations and view them more positively than both lectures and case discussions. However, research on the actual learning outcomes deriving from participating in business simulations still needs to be pursued. Consequently, the purpose of this case-study article is to examine how a business simulation game contributes to the cognitive learning of novices in business studies. We describe the use of a clock-driven business simulation for teaching 133 novices in business studies at the University of Turku, Finland. The students’ cognitive learning was evaluated based on data generated by pre- and post-game concept map tests designed to illustrate the formation and change of mental models during the simulation course. The results of this study suggest that simulation games can provide a solid basis for novice learning. They help to increase comprehension of the complexity of business organizations and the various processes, transactions, and operations involved.

Theorizing on the Treatment of Time in Simulation Gaming

A key element in organizational decision making is the progress of time and the ability to live with it. This article discusses the factor of time in decision making and how time can be taken into account in computerized simulation gaming. The discussion is based on recent definitions and classifications of time. The author reflects on these classifications and argues that embedding a richer time conception could increase the application domain of simulation gaming in the organizational context. Finally, the author theorizes on the implications of continuous processing in simulation gaming. The results indicate that continuous gaming provides an intense and meaningful learning environment.

On teaching business decision-making in complex domains

This paper treats teaching decision-making in business as a separate issue from teaching business decision support. We consider business decision-making ability to be a combination of theory and practice (experience) and hence, perceive teaching decision-making an exercise that has to take both, business theory and business experience into consideration; this can be achieved with experiential learning. Complexity in the business environment and different learning environments are discussed. Selected instances of teaching decision-making under complexity are presented for illustration.

Introducing Organizational Characteristics in Learning Environments

We introduce some present day environmental characteristics affecting modern business organizations. We then argue why these characteristics should be taken into account when designing business-learning environments. The main message of the paper is that we need better learning environments that authentically describe the present day business environment, for example the process nature of business operations and the time aspect of decision-making.