Master thesis: measuring the learning outcomes of simulation and board games for sustainability competencies development of business students.

1. Sustainability competence
development of business
students
Learning effects of using board
and simulation games
Thesis presentation Industrial Ecology | RinkWeijs | July 4th 2016
Supervisors: Geertje Bekebrede & Igor Nikolic

2. Education for Sustainable Development
“Education is a prerequisite for achieving
sustainable development”
“It can promote a shift in people’s mindset and
in so doing enable them to make our world safer,
healthier and more prosperous, thereby
improving the quality of life”

3. Marketing
Finance
HR
Logistics
IT
…
Management
Sustainability
Logistics
IT
…
Marketing
Finance
HR
Logistics
Management
Integration into curriculum?

4. Lack of data at course level
• Which SD-competencies?
• Operationalization?
• Pedagogic methods?
• Measuring learning outcomes?
Sustainability
Learning activities
Content
Assessment
Learning objectives

5. Traditional lecturing methods not sufficient

6. Main research question
“What are the cognitive and affective learning outcomes of
using board & simulation games on the development of
sustainability competencies of (business) students?”

7. Cognitive and affective learning outcomes
Cognitive
• Declarative: knowledge of facts
and data
• Procedural: knowledge how to
perform a task
• Strategic: knowledge applied in
different contexts and problem-
solving
Affective
• Norms and values
• Attitudes and preferences
Garris & Driskell (2002)

8. Research questions
1. What are sustainability competencies?What is their relevance for business
education? And how are they operationalized?
2. What is the value of (simulation & board) games as experiential learning
method for sustainability competencies - according to the theory?
3. Which board & simulation games are suitable for developing SD
competencies within the experimental setting?
4. How can the learning process and outcomes of these games be measured?
5. What are the cognitive and affective learning outcomes of playing the
board & simulation games?

9. Research framework
Garris & Driskell (2002)

10. Research questions
1. What are sustainability competencies?What is their relevance for business
education? And how are they operationalized?
2. What is the value of (simulation & board) games as experiential learning
method for sustainability competencies - according to the theory?
3. Which board & simulation games are suitable for developing SD
competencies within the experimental setting?
4. How can the learning process and outcomes of these games be measured?
5. What are the cognitive and affective learning outcomes of playing the
board & simulation games?

11. Competencies
“A competency is an integrated set of knowledge, skills,
values and attitudes which enable successful task
performance and problem solving”
(Spady 1994; Rychen and Salganik, 2003; Baartman et al. 2007)

12. Key SD-competencies
Wiek et al. (2011): A layered set of competencies in sustainability education linking basic
competencies and key competencies in sustainability

13. Which concepts & methods?
Wiek et al. (2011)

14. Research questions
1. What are sustainability competencies?What is their relevance for business
education? And how are they operationalized?
2. What is the value of (simulation & board) games as experiential learning
method for sustainability competencies - according to the theory?
3. Which board & simulation games are suitable for developing SD
competencies within the experimental setting?
4. How can the learning process and outcomes of these games be measured?
5. What are the cognitive and affective learning outcomes of playing the
board & simulation games?

15. Knowledge retention
(How much do you remember?)

16. Experiential learning (Kolb, 1984)

17. Gaming!!

18. Game type characteristics
Board games
• Tangible artifacts
• Attractive visual design
• Board+ is game world
• Social context
• Stimulates conversations
• Active learning
Simulation games
• Mimic part of reality
• Enable manipulation of system
• Allows testing varies strategies
that have different outcomes
• Short feedback loop
• Requires problem-solving
• Cost of error is low

19. Research questions
1. What are sustainability competencies?What is their relevance for business
education? And how are they operationalized?
2. What is the value of (simulation & board) games as experiential learning
method for sustainability competencies - according to the theory?
3. Which board & simulation games are suitable for developing SD
competencies within the experimental setting?
4. How can the learning process and outcomes of these games be measured?
5. What are the cognitive and affective learning outcomes of playing the
board & simulation games?

20. Simulation games
• The Intergenerational Game: three generations
playing rounds with a fixed amount of natural capital
available for production and technological
enhancement
• The Fisheries Game: multiple teams fishing from the
ocean that has a specific fish stock and growth rate.
Fish caught count for points or can be reinvested to
build a private fish pond
• The Externalities Game: three countries producing
goods and scoring points, while causing externalities.
Production points depend on the country and the
externalities caused also differentiate
Sadowski et al. (2013):

21. Which SD-concepts?

22. Sustainability Board Games

23. Research questions
1. What are sustainability competencies?What is their relevance for business
education? And how are they operationalized?
2. What is the value of (simulation & board) games as experiential learning
method for sustainability competencies - according to the theory?
3. Which board & simulation games are suitable for developing SD
competencies within the experimental setting?
4. How can the learning process and outcomes of these games be measured?
5. What are the cognitive and affective learning outcomes of playing the
board & simulation games?

24. How to measure?

25. What to measure?

26. C
• Build &

27. Research questions
1. What are sustainability competencies?What is their relevance for business
education? And how are they operationalized?
2. What is the value of (simulation & board) games as experiential learning
method for sustainability competencies - according to the theory?
3. Which board & simulation games are suitable for developing SD
competencies within the experimental setting?
4. How can the learning process and outcomes of these games be measured?
5. What are the cognitive and affective learning outcomes of playing the
board & simulation games?

28. Play-testing the games
Total 11 classes during weekly lectures 18-22nd of January 2016

29. Respondents
Simulation Games Pre-test Quiz Post-test Survey Cleaned results
The Intergenerational Game
# respondents 47 44 38
The Fisheries Game
# respondents 49 48 37
The Externalities Game
# respondents 64 53 49
Total 160 145 124
Board Games Post-test Survey Cleaned results
The Green Game 9 9
Planet Earth Monopoly 10 10
GBO Hawaii 5 5
Earthopoly 15 15
Total 39 39

30. Cognitive: declarative knowledge
Simulation games
• Strong theoretical foundation
• Less theoretical application
• Good connection B&S course
• Lower results after playing?
• Self-study proves difficult
• Strong on transfer to real world
• Students remember longer?
Board games
• No theoretical foundation
• Very low theoretical value
• Depending on question cards
• Context related (USA)
• Almost no transfer
• Easier to remember!

31. Cognitive: procedural knowledge
Simulation games
• Students are used to be ‘taught’
• Independent active
experimentation is difficult
• Low understanding of the games
beforehand
• Level of agency thereby lower
• No feeling of mastery of the
game
Board games
• Students with knowledge of
Monopoly thrived on related
games
• Decision-making method
proved valuable
• GBO Hawaii total disaster (too
complex)

32. Cognitive: strategic knowledge
Simulation games
• Players experienced the
collective action problem
• More than 90 percent got it
• TIG: possible well-being
scenarios
• TEG: strategies to combat
externalities
• TFG: strategies to prevent
overfishing
Board games
• All games require a competitive
strategy
• Depending on the game, this is
more or less sustainable
• Monopoly variations are less
appreciated for sustainability

33. Affective: norms and values
Simulation games
• TIG: score on ‘How many
generations should we take into
account?’ went up with 30%
• TFG: students see a big role for a
third party like government
• TEG: 67% are in favor of
including externalities into
market prices
Board games
• No specific constructs tested
• However, students came up with
their own criteria (norms):
• Sustainable materials?
• Level of expertise necessary?
• Raising SD-awareness?
• Graphic design?
• How challenging?

34. Affective: attitude towards games

35. Boardgames
compared

36. Simulationgames
compared

37. Conclusion simulation games
Simulation games are very good alternative to teach and
learn (experiential) about sustainability issues and are
very valuable to develop own normative judgement

38. Conclusions board games
Board games are unique in their capacity to
engage because they are visually attractive, have
nice artifacts and create a stimulating social
setting

39. Discussion
• Research technically difficult to combine both game types
• Board games need better selection and more rigorous evaluation
• Operationalization and testing of constructs needs more consistency
• Active experimentation and reflection suffered from time constraints
• Although observer bias was prevented, the observation partially
focused on the ‘wrong’ behavior
• Observers were briefed, though the quality varied significantly
• Research design not strong enough to measure correlations
• Student scores might reflect social desirability bias

40. Recommendation
Create a hybrid game that combines best of both game types:
tangible, visually attractive with a good interface for fast data
entry and feedback

41. Sustainability & Business Game?

42. Design impression
Game board & artefacts
Application
Questions
System model
Rulesets
Game story “Maximize value and save the world!”
Target group
BBA & MBA students
Content
Decisions

43. Questions?