Impact of a Mobile Serious Game on Learning Outcomes for Complex Problem Solving Skills

Serious games are games that aim for a learning effect. They should increase motivation and commitment of students and thus lead to better learning outcomes. This approach is used at the UAS Campus Vienna, where students of the master degree program “Software Design and Engineering” have to complete the course “Complex Problem Solving”. This course was introduced to meet the need of computer science graduates to be able to solve complex problems in their professional life. The course is based on the Theory of Constraints by Goldratt, which can be taught playing a dice game that simulates a production chain consisting of production steps that build on one another. In this paper we present design and development of this serious game as a digital mobile variant and evaluate its impact on learning outcomes. The survey results show that the serious game improves the understanding of the principles of the Theory of Constraints among students. Furthermore, the students partly found the digital version easier to understand than the analogue dice game.