Game-Design Based Learning in Engineering Education: Impacts on Career Readiness

Game-based learning is an established active learning strategy that can support college students’ engagement and achievement. In this study, engineering instructors tasked civil engineering students with working in teams to develop a game that teaches players key course concepts. Guided by the central research question, “How does game-development based learning impact engineering students’ development of workforce readiness skills?”, the study focuses on three core objectives: (1) evaluating students’ ability to work effectively in teams, (2) assessing their project management capabilities, and (3) measuring their capacity to acquire and apply new content knowledge. Notably, students' reported effort on and valuing of the game development project was related to key workforce skills like conflict resolution and project management. Findings from this research provide deeper insights into how game development based learning can be used as an instructional strategy to promote both academic learning and professional skill development among engineering students.