Research is beginning to show that today’s young adults have suffered from the lack of free and unsupervised play that children experienced for much of the 20th century (which started to end in the 1990s). These adults may suffer from the inability to handle social situations and regulate their behavior appropriately. In addition, these adults have limited ability to think creatively and expound upon and/or refine rudimentary ideas. They lack confidence and self-esteem, and can suffer from anxiety and depression in higher numbers that previous generations. This is not solely a US phenomenon, as students in Asian countries where students spend more time in school and even less time playing also suffer these issues.
A growing trend in HRM is the use of games to teach employees knowledge and skills that they need for their jobs (gamification). Your assignment will be to find a way to use gamification to help students learn skills that they will need in business but may be missing from their repertoire as a result of inadequate development in childhood.
Assignment:
You are to research on what skills play can teach individuals, and how it can be an effective tool in adult education. Then you are to develop and to recommend an activity that can be used in a classroom to help students teach then one or more skills they will need if they are to work in a business field (it does not have to HRM, it can be marketing, accounting, etc.) that research shows is 1) lacking and 2) at least partially gained though what was normal childhood free play & experience. The game can be one that is played by 1 person or a group. You can use existing games, but you will have to describe in detail how those games will develop a skill in students.
So if you are going to tell me that students should be assigned teams and told to play PUBG/Fortnite in order to build teamwork skills, you will need to expound upon that idea with what specific skills the students will learn (e.g name different teamwork skills or knowledge), what activities will the teams need to do specifically to gain skills, problems that the students may run into. Not everyone is good at sneaking or not everyone can aim well to be effective in a shooter game and how to overcome those problems. You also need to provide instructions on how both the team and the instructor should evaluate the work and assess skill development (will there be a team reflection paper and a gaming log, or will it be something else).
Instructions:
You will need at least 7 academic references. These and the rest of your paper should be formatted to APA 7th edition standards.
You will need at least 4 pages, excluding the reference page. One page should be dedicated to the research you have done on both gamification and the skill(s) you wish to teach. Then at least 1 page on the activity and how to run it, as well as the other items about the activity specified above.
