Where Academics Meet the Real World: Difficulties Encountered When Conducting a Project for Designing a Game-Based Learning in a Company

  • Authors:
  • Eduardo Werneck;Maiga Chang

  • Affiliations:
  • School of Computing and Information Systems, Athabasca University, Canada;School of Computing and Information Systems, Athabasca University, Canada

  • Venue:
  • Edutainment '09 Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on E-Learning and Games: Learning by Playing. Game-based Education System Design and Development
  • Year:
  • 2009

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Abstract

Educational games have been widely developed and tested by many researchers. Most of results show that the educational games are good to increase students' learning motivations in formal learning. It seems quite workable, however, is it also true if we want to apply the concepts to business? Or, does it still have effects to on-job-training and orientation in business? This research focuses on the first question. The experience of trying to design and test a Game-Based Learning System, with a joy component, in a real corporation is challenging and risky. This paper shows how hard was to find a company willing to do this test, the negotiations involved, the legal issues and the extensive scrutiny imposed. Constant revisions and postponing, threatening of cancellation and misinformation about company resources needs continuous diplomacy and flexibility from researchers. Prejudice against computer games may play an important barrier and an unfair advantage towards traditional training deliveries.