How Digital Strategy and Management Games Can Facilitate the Practice of Dynamic Decision-Making

• Main Authors: André Czauderna, Alexandra Budke
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2020-04-01
• Series: Education Sciences
• Subjects: decision-making; polytelic conflicts; problem-solving; digital games; game-based learning; gameplay loop
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7102/10/4/99

This paper examines how digital strategy and management games that have been initially designed for entertainment can facilitate the practice of dynamic decision-making. Based on a comparative qualitative analysis of 17 games—organized into categories derived from a conceptual model of decision-making design—this article illustrates two ways in which these games may be useful in supporting the learning of dynamic decision-making in educational practice: (1) Players must take over the role of a decider and solve situations in which players must pursue different conflicting goals by making a continuous series of decisions on a variety of actions and measures; (2) three of the features of the games are considered to structure players’ practice of decision-making and foster processes of learning through the curation of possible decisions, the offering of lucid feedback and the modification of time. This article also highlights the games’ shortcomings, from an educational perspective, as players’ decisions are restricted by the numbers of choices they can make within the game, and certain choices are rewarded more than others. An educational application of the games must, therefore, entail a critical reflection of players’ limited choices inside a necessarily biased system.