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Design, Creation and Evaluation of TEAM, A Serious Game for Teamwork Development

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The Challenges of the Digital Transformation in Education (ICL 2018)

Abstract

The aim of this study is to create an educational game which, through the simulation of realistic situations, enhances the development, practice and improvement of skills, which are necessary for the people’s professional progress. In particular, this game will aim at developing people’s teamwork skills, as they need to work closely with others in order to achieve their common goals.

Initially, a detailed description of the necessary theoretical concepts, namely game-based learning and serious games, is displayed. In addition, the term soft skills, is presented, while the chapter concludes with presentation of teamwork skills. This analysis of the theoretical concepts explains the importance of soft skills and in particular of teamwork skills, while at the same time it explains why the creation of an educational game has been chosen in order to strengthen them. Then, after comparing the available technologies, it emerged that the most appropriate tool was the Unity 3D platform along with the Fungus package. Afterwards there was a comparison in order to find the appropriate questionnaire for using to create the game’s script. The steps followed for designing and implementing the game are described below. After the game’s implementation an evaluation activity was conducted. The results were encouraging concerning the ease of use, the enjoyment and the usefulness of the game. This article ends with suggestions for future research.

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Acknowledgement

This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

The authors of this research would like to thank GOAL team who generously shared their time, experience, and materials for the purposes of this project.

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Correspondence to Panagiotis Stylianidis .

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Sereti, M., Mavropoulou, A., Stylianidis, P., Politopoulos, N., Tsiatsos, T., Douka, S. (2020). Design, Creation and Evaluation of TEAM, A Serious Game for Teamwork Development. In: Auer, M., Tsiatsos, T. (eds) The Challenges of the Digital Transformation in Education. ICL 2018. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol 916. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11932-4_69

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