The issues of adopting simulation games in software engineering classes

Previous researches have pointed out that simulation games can be an effective tool for enhancing the students' motivation to learn and understand complex subjects. Although the decision to use a simulation game is made mainly by the instructor, the students' perceptions are also important in order to support its usage. The increasing interest in educational simulation games motivates us to investigate relevant factors that influence the adoption of simulation games in Software Engineering courses. Based on a theoretical adoption model and on the evaluation of a specific simulation game, we identified crucial aspects beyond the ones usually considered, such as incorporating more industrial settings phenomena and pedagogical elements. These aspects are not always considered in Software Engineering simulation games, as we identified after an evaluation. Therefore, we concluded that this class of simulation games does not address suitably the adoption attributes that we found relevant.