Can gaming provide enough context to improve knowledge integration and retention in engineering freshmen? Developing a computer game for industrial engineering

IEECI在工程教育研究中的这一建议的目标是开发，部署和评估一个严肃的虚拟世界角色扮演游戏，在这个游戏中，新生工业工程（IE）学生将解决他们毕业后可能面临的典型现实问题。学生将与虚拟世界互动，IE技术将应用于工厂，银行，医院或游乐园等的改进。这种学习工具将在提高保留，兴趣和动机的新生IE学生，以及学习的背景下，提高学生对核心概念的理解，并提高解决问题的技能在复杂的非结构化问题的支持方面进行评估。许多游戏开发专家认为，开发学习型游戏需要模型，以利用教育和游戏世界的优势。增加有资格处理开放式现实世界问题的工程专业毕业生的数量，对国家的经济健康和活力至关重要。提供这种适当的经验一直是本科工程教育的一个挑战，一个共同的障碍，以保留一直缺乏学生的理解如何在课堂上教授的技能是相关的？真实世界以角色扮演游戏的形式开发教育工具的拟议研究将测试严肃游戏如何解决这些问题，并为其他工程学科和项目提供资源和模型。虽然模拟和游戏被用于工业和军事的人员培训，并在更非正式的设置作为娱乐，游戏还没有被使用和测试作为本科工程教育工具。这款游戏的编程代码将作为在线开源项目发布。这将是一个开放的邀请，为当前和未来的学生使用游戏和合作者在地球仪参与持续发展。

The objective of this IEECI proposal in engineering education research is to develop, deploy, and assess a serious virtual-world role playing game in which freshmen industrial engineering (IE) students will tackle real-world problems typical of what they may face after graduation. Students will interact with a virtual world where IE techniques will be applied to make improvements in a factory, bank, hospital, or amusement park for example. This learning tool will be assessed in terms of improved retention, interest, and motivation of freshman IE students, as well as support of learning in context, improved student understanding of core concepts, and improved problem-solving skills in complex unstructured problems. Many game development experts agree that models are needed for developing learning games that take advantage of the strengths of both the educational and gaming worlds.Increasing the number of engineering graduates qualified to deal with open-ended real-world problems is essential to the economic health and vitality of the nation. Providing appropriate experience of this sort has been a challenge to undergraduate engineering education, and a common barrier to retention has been a lack of student understanding of how the skills taught in the classroom are relevant to the ?real-world.? The proposed research on the development of an educational tool in the form of a role playing game will test how serious games may address these issues and also provide a resource and a model for other engineering disciplines and programs. Although simulations and games are used for personnel training in industry and the military, and in more informal settings as entertainment, games have not been used and tested as an undergraduate engineering educational tool. The programming code of this game will be released as an online open- source project. This will be an open invitation for current and prospective students to use the game and for collaborators around the globe to participate in continued development.