Serious Games in Marketing Education: Developing Higher Order Cognitive Skills through collaboration in a Simulation Game,

Abstract

This study set out to explore the use of an online resource to simulate real-world marketing principles, designed as a serious game, for students studying an undergraduate introductory marketing module. The simulation game aimed to address both hard and soft skills in the area of producing marketing plans. This paper sets out the findings of the thematic analysis of 126 essays that reflect students’ learning experiences with the marketing simulation. Findings suggest that the simulation produced positive learning outcomes in the areas of cognitive skill development, including knowledge application and critical thinking, as well as group-work related skill-sets in the field of cooperative learning. Negative experiences with the simulation were articulated in the context of demotivation and lack of engagement that could be rooted in either issues with the software or missing or unclear connections between the students’ inputs, the feedback provided by the software, and the underlying marketing theory. We explore the relationship between fidelity of the simulation, learner’s perceived autonomy within the simulation and learner motivation.