Research in the Classroom: The Teaching of Economics and Gamification

Oriana Rivera-Lozada,Isabel Cristina Rivera-Lozada,Jhonatan Alexander Moreno-Delacruz

doi:10.3991/ijet.v16i16.23479

Abstract

This paper presents the preliminary results of a proposal to facilitate the understanding of concepts and the logic of economy in university students who are not enrolled in the academic program of economics. This proposal is based on the simulation game called Strategies and Markets in Economics (Estrategias y Mercados en Economía – EMERCO), which resulted from a research process in the classroom. The methodology has a qualitative approach and a descriptive type, with an exploratory scope. This study shows the functioning of the game, the selection of the team according to mentality type and brain dominance, in accordance with the Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument. The game has novel elements in its structure by bringing the real functioning of a market to the classroom, achieving better results in regard to grades and in the assimilation of the contents in introductory classes and fundamentals of economics in higher education.

Highlights

The teaching of economics has evident challenges nowadays
The teaching of economics has had significant challenges worldwide recently, which are evident in introductory and fundamentals of economics courses in university students majoring careers which are not economics, with regard to the ease of the understanding of the mechanism and logic of economic phenomena and their instrumentalization
This study shows, at an exploratory level, that it is possible to obtain greater assimilation of concepts related to the study of the market as a relevant category for the understanding of economic models

Summary

Introduction

The teaching of economics has evident challenges nowadays. The economic crisis in several countries leads us to rethink the possibilities of offering answers to the multiple economic challenges and the big social gaps, since the world's wealth increases, but most of the population suffer serious deprivation, which makes survival more difficult.As a result, various demonstrations led by student movements have emerged in France, Greece, Spain and the United States. The economic crisis in several countries leads us to rethink the possibilities of offering answers to the multiple economic challenges and the big social gaps, since the world's wealth increases, but most of the population suffer serious deprivation, which makes survival more difficult. In addition to a clear ideological bias, the contents tend to be abstract and instrumentalized, which hinders their understanding and their association with reality. These restrictions are present both in students with specific economic training, as well iJET ‒ Vol 16, No 16, 2021

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Conclusion