An effective game-based business simulation tool for enhancing entrepreneurial skills among engineering students

Abstract

The landscape of engineering is constantly evolving and today, engineers are expected to have an understanding of not only science and technology but also certain aspects of business acumen such as the ability to understand market trends and customers' demands, identify business opportunities and commercialization of new innovation and products. Game-based Business Simulation is considered as one of the most important teaching and learning tools in Entrepreneurship Education due to its effectiveness in providing a realistic representation of a business within a virtual environment. It provides students with the opportunity to experience business scenarios and situations thus stimulating their creativity and entrepreneurial skills. However, there are very limited studies that explore the effectiveness of business simulation tools among engineering students in Higher Education. The objective of this paper is to analyze a specific business simulation tool called ‘SimVenture Evolution’ used in a popular postgraduate module ‘Enterprise’ in the Department of Electronic Engineering at York. A blended approach was used in the delivery of this module with a series of theoretical lectures in parallel with an authentic experience of running a hypothetical business within the simulation. A survey was conducted among the cohort undertaking this module in the Spring of 2020 to measure their confidence with various aspects of entrepreneurship before and after undertaking this module. Can such experiential technologies facilitate the development of a wide range of skills needed to stimulate students' entrepreneurial competences? The paper will discuss the findings of this study and also highlight if such approaches can transform the educational setting in entrepreneurship education for engineering students.