Game-based learning in construction to counter the challenges of large group teaching with vast student diversity

Basu, Chaitali; Wiejak-Roy, Grazyna

Abstract

Research indicates that despite increasingly multicultural approach of the universities, typical patterns show that students with different cultures minimally interact, and this leads to ‘group separation’. This implies that there is greater degree of separation between local and international students making it difficult to interact and work in groups. Additionally, neither traditional 'knowledge delivery' models of teaching, or a purely 'student-centred' approach would adequately address the challenges of student diversity, because students are for most of the course struggle to make meaning in strange intellectual and social surroundings. An approach to this challenge is ‘group learning’ or ‘cooperative learning’, characterized by positive interdependence, where students perceive that better performance by individuals produces better performance by the entire group. One of the recognised techniques of ‘group learning’ is ‘gaming simulations’, and this research explored the application of ‘gaming simulation’ to translate a ‘group assignment’ into a ‘strategy game’ as full-day class activity aligning it with an assessment -group presentation. Research shows that gaming simulations, students’ activity and discussions are key to the learning experience, which artifacts the concepts of constructivism. Furthermore, group activities are beneficial in revealing managerial and leadership characteristics and demonstrate how leaders can manage effectively to achieve goals. Conducted as an experiment, this research presents a pilot study that was used to assess the feasibility of ‘game-based learning’ in large-group learning withing the discipline of construction project management. The key outcomes from the study were that it successfully brought incohesive group members together and provided students an opportunity to pool their collective knowledge to create new understanding for the purpose of the assignment. The other key elements of the ‘strategy game’ were ‘peer review’, ‘peer feedback’ and prize. The ‘social interdependence theory’ explains five variables which mediate the effects of corporation, the fifth variable is that group work should encourage mechanism for assessing positive and negative group interactions and provide feedback to group members. Thus, ‘peer review’ and ‘peer feedback’ was introduced by us for ‘game’, and student groups assessed each other’s works for identifying the winner. The prize worked as a competitive incentive. Student feedback repeated the words ‘innovative’, and ‘engaging’. The key challenge was whilst students engaged and enjoyed the process of deriving their own solutions, they were still unsure of their decisions and required a tutor-led intervention.

• Presentation Conference Type: Presentation / Talk
• Conference Name: 18th European Real Estate Society Education Seminar
• Start Date: Dec 2, 2022
• End Date: Dec 3, 2022
• Deposit Date: Dec 12, 2022
• Publicly Available Date: Dec 12, 2022
• Keywords: Game-based learning, group separation, group learning, peer feedback
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/10227326
• Related Public URLs: https://www.eres.org/; ; https://eres.org/index.php/annual-conferences