Decision to participate in Gamification of learning experiences. For the admission of soft skills

It is widely known that competence and cooperation must be worked together to develop knowledge and skills from the university (Morshheuser et al. 2019). For this reason, the Global Management Challenge simulation model has been used as a tool in the teaching processes in the technical careers of the Polytechnic University of Madrid. This simulator allows you to generate teams that participate in competitive environments and includes networking and crowdsourcing elements. All this is framed within the Bologna process that addresses widely among other aspects, the challenge of moving from theoretical knowledge to practice with active methodologies that enhance soft skill in students.

In this context this research aims to study what aspects (competencies) are enhanced by gamification in the environment of technical careers. To respond to the research objective, a survey was conducted of 214 participating students from all UPM technical careers, linking their performance to success in the subjects (M.Pérez et al. 2018). In this case, The behavior of the students who have led their respective teams has been studied, analyzing the motivational elements (D.Mekler et al 2015), professional knowledge, as well as the existing gamification elements in the simulation (classifications, rounds or decorations). Taking into account all these aspects, a reduction of variables has been carried out without losing relevant information by applying an analysis of main components, with the obtained components a modeling of the variables with the Machine Learning CRT algorithm has been developed.

What made it possible to determine that the decisions that students make regarding the choice of the group and the roles to play in the leadership of the group are influenced by the motivation, effort and dedication that they intend to devote to the competition, linking this motivation and effort with the expectation that technical training to provide them differential skills to solve complex problems in the business area under an environment of uncertainty and response under pressure. In addition, it is perceived as a need to actively engage in the entire competition decision-making process to develop the soft skills needed to confront and distinguish itself in the changing work and economic context.

Also from, the perspective of university and teaching educational innovations are introduced that encourage the use of innovative tools that are well valued from the technical and human resources departments in companies, due to the different hard and soft skill perceived in candidates who have had these gamifications within their training.

Keyword: Gamification, Soft skills, Learning experiences, Global Management Challenge

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