The Contribution of Serious Games for the Success of Students in Entrepreneurship

Abstract

The adoption of serious games as a complement to traditional classroom training is still an emerging theme, but it offers relevant potentialities for both students and teachers. This study describes the integration process of serious games in an entrepreneurship course over five years (2014-2018). In the first three years, the ENTRExplorer was adopted, while in the last two years the FLIGBY was used. The experience of using entrepreneurship serious games is analyzed according to multiple perspectives, such as complexity, generation of more entrepreneurial or group working skills, engagement, interactivity, learning outcomes, or even the impact on the intention to establish a new venture. The findings allowed a comparative analysis of the two games, indicating significant differences in some of those dimensions. Nevertheless, the learning outcomes provided by each game were considered relevant by the students, showing that both games can be useful in the process of learning and acquiring entrepreneurship competencies.