Gamification Ssupports Uunused Ppotential

The learning process in life never ends. The focus of learning is on both the new
skills for a successful career at school and in jobs as well as on peoples personal
development. The human brains favourite way of learning is playing. Children at a
young age learn important skills by playing with toys. The cognitive, social, emotional
and the creative development gets improved. What about employees of a company
playing games in order to improve their knowledge in special fields. Considering the
change from generation X to generation Y, the level of education and the internal
knowledge of employees has become more significant for companies today. It is not
easy to find the perfect procedure to motivate the workforce and to train their soft
skills and their hard skills. That is why it takes new ways of learning and training. If
the employees get the chance to play games, they could be trained in specific
directions which is an enormous advantage for the company. Additionally, the playing
aspect starts a creative process and the people have the willingness to change,
develop and improve their expertise. Deloitte, one of four big professional services
firms, made the experiment and trained their employees on game-based methods,
with unexpected consequences. Using game-based training in companies offers a
non-frontal approach toed learning, which creates an individual learning process and
creativity gets fostered.
Game-based training offers a controlled environment where real-world
challenges can be practiced without any risks. Using elements of games can change
the process of learning and developing in a company by making it more exciting than
frontal approachplain lectures. Therefore learnersLearners participate more willingly
and find solutions together. According to Jessica Trybus, an expert in effective
learning and communication, learning is not about trying to memorize things, it is
rather the achievement of new skills and processes of thoughts which people need in

Gamification supports unused potential

order to perform. (What is Effective Game-based Learning and how does it (What is
Effective Game-based Learning, and Why Does it Work?, para. 1). Therefore
theThe right way to handle problems and challenges in companies is discovered
through experimentation and practicing. Game-based and simulation methods
provide the environment to do this. They give a motivating as well as concrete goal.
In order to reach this goal different tasks are performed by employees. In comparison
to normal learning the consequences are experienced at the moment of choosing the
action. Additionally game based methods transfer tasks of the real world into a virtual
world. Due to the fact that the workforce of the future is growing up in a digital world,
nearly everyone is comfortable with solving virtual exercises and tasks in video
games and virtual worlds. Consequently getting feedback in form of scores, points
and badges has become normal, whereupon it even motivates to get better results
and try sequences again. The power of this situation resembling a competition
encourages and engages employees to pass the challenges and to find innovative
solutions. Trybus further states that the positive aspect of this feedback and the
game-based methods in principal is that every feedback and further step of the
process of reaching a goal is individually adapted to the person. (How we learn,
para. 6) Considering that game based methods offer an individual learning process,
employees are able to train their skills, as well as making their experiences in their
own time. Gamification offers a new possibility to support individual learning
processes in companies. Trybus suggests that when learners have solved a
challenge in an ineffective way, the circumstances or situations can be repeated and
improved. (Game-based learning vs traditional learning, para.1) For that reason
the different consequences of different ways of for ones actions can be experienced.
Because the environment which is used for training or learning seems relevant to the
workforce a connection exists between the virtual and the real workplace. Therefore
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the positive experience with practiced solutions and behaviours, done without real
consequences, engages to transfer them from artificial challenges into existing
problems in the workplace. Giving or receiving constant feedback during the learning
process creates a situation where employees are encouraged and engaged to find
new innovative solutions. In order to develop new ideas soft skills play an important
role. By playing games the hard skills as well as the soft skills, such as creativity, get
improved.
Gamification fosters out-of-the-box thinking and that helps in the creative
process of innovation. Through playing games the achievement of employees
increases in companies. The games are the sources of an unused potential of
innovative ideas. If the employees are initiated into playing games this unfolds a
tremendous amount of a yet unexploited quality of creative solutions. Playing games
involves a feeling of freedom because in a safe environment the players feel inspired
to try out new processes and pursue new ways to reach their goals. (Gamification
foster creativity, page. 64, year 2014). Most importantly making mistakes is part of
the game and does not have the same negative impact as in the real world.
Therefore, the players develop a freedom where new ideas are being developed and
creative thinking is supported. In Marius Kalinauskas article, Gamification in
fostering creativity, there is a perfect example that supports the idea of gamification.
In an experiment one group played a priming-based game and afterwards they got a
creative task to solve. In the process of solving these tasks there were more
significant ideas and possible solutions than in a control-group, which did the task
without playing the game beforehand. Creativity fosters a different view on the
environment, which is very important in the complex and fast changing business
world of today. For projects within the company, creativity is the source of innovative
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Gamification supports unused potential

ideas. Innovative product developments and constant improvement processes are

the major issues which make a company successful and help it to survive on the
global market. Taking a view from outside the company, creativity might also foster a
critical attitude towards the business environment of a company, the market
development, the customers needs and the competitors. In fact creative thinking
might help develop both new internal processes as well as critical point of views on
the companys environment.
Games support creativity, whereas creativity is very important to have new product
developments. Through working in an environment where mistakes can or should
happen creative solutions can be developed more easily. This helps the companies
to set themselves apart of from their competitors, which leads to a strong position on
the global market.
Creativity is one positive aspect that gets boosted by using game-based
training. A non-frontal approach to learning is the other positive aspect. By adding
game based elements to training, a risk- free setting is givenprovided. Additionally,
the employees can learn from trial and error. Consequently they can apply their new
knowledge in the real world. A further advantage of involving games is that soft skills
like creativity is supported, which is an unused potential in todays business world.
Corresponding to that the creative product development processes is improved,
which enables companies to survive on the global market. As mentioned in the
paragraph aboveintroduction, there are already huge companies like Deloitte, a big
professional service firm company, which introducedimplemented a new game-based
method of learning and training for their employees. The result was that they could
lower the time of training of their employees by 50%. They also increased the longterm engagement of their employees.
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References:
Kalinauskas Marius (2014). Gamification in fostering Creativity. Social technologies
2014, 4(1) p. 62-75. Abstract retrieved October 3, 2014, from
https://www3.mruni.eu/ojs/ social-technologies/article/view/2044/3689

Trybus Jessica. Game-Based Learning: What it is, Why it Works, and Where its
going. Retrieved October 6, 2014, from http://www.newmedia.org/gamebased-learning--what-it-is-why-it-works-and-where-its-going.html

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COMMENTS
well done!
good.
fixed
Reference list not completed
Better!

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