Noting to the perception of teachers about a serious game is a key point in its diffusion. It is more highlighted when we look at precisely to their role as persons who strongly influence on a method that should be used in class and if it is a game, in most cases, they have to decide which game with which feature is suitable to select. Thus, focusing on teachers’ approach need to be considered in both design and assess of serious games. This issue in manufacturing and engineering education has been neglected yet, might be due of in several case designers and teachers are same persons.
In this post we are aiming to summarize the result of a study about evaluation of effectiveness of a serious game, in manufacturing area, based on teachers’ points of view. This study is carried out in TARGET (Transformative, Adaptive, Responsive and enGaging EnvironmenT) which was a project funded by European Commission. SGM (Sustainable Global Manufacturing) game developed since one project objectives in order to teach sustainable manufacturing concepts and also improve some social skills of student in engineering and business school. Story of the game takes place in a company that produces coffee machine where CEO decides to hire a sustainable manager, as player character, who directs company in a way to produce green product. For this goal he has to gather related and reliable information in making dialogue with CEO, Production manager and Shift manage and then insert them in LCA (Life Cycle Assessment).
This study was done in three evaluation sessions where a video of game was shown to 9 teachers in department of management engineering at Politecnico di Milano. After each session, teachers one by one participated in a semi-structured interview where they were asked by 23 questions including both multiple choice and deep questions to find to what extent game can be useful in class. Results demonstrated that game has a considerable potential to be added in curriculum and all teachers stated that they are interested to play real game. Also they believed game is able to transfer knowledge of green product to learners’ mind and enhance some social skills such as communication, negotiation, decision making and problem solving. In conclusion, although game was successful to meet defined objectives, there were some points that notice to them in design further version of game can promote its effectiveness.