How to Measure Gameful Experience in Business and Education?

Abstract

While there is increasing interest in gamification in the context of business and education and the use of business simulation games has increased, there is not yet a short scale for measuring gameful experience in business simulation games. Existing scales are rather general and include a large number of items. When it comes to using such scales, scholars often face practical issues and restrictions regarding the survey length and participants’ response time. Furthermore, some of these rather general items are inappropriate in the business and education context. As such, gameful application evaluations are mostly incomplete and are not readily comparable, as they neglect the gameful experience itself. Thus, in this study, a short scale for measuring gameful experience in business simulation games (GxBusiness-Quest) was developed based on existing scales and related literature. Based on four samples from a business simulation game, a step-by-step scale reduction, an exploratory analysis, a confirmatory analysis, and a bivariate analysis were applied. The results confirmed that the short scale developed is a reliable and valid measure, and is a useful instrument for researchers and practitioners working in the context of business and education.