Digital Game-Based Learning in the Context of School Entrepreneurship Education: Proposing a Framework for Evaluating the Effectiveness of Digital Games

Abstract

Entrepreneurship constitutes a significant indicator of the economic and cultural growth of societies and thus, the development of an entrepreneurial culture receives increased attention. School-based education can significantly contribute toward this direction, starting from young people, since skills and attitudes begin to develop from an early age. Digital games offer authentic and meaningful environments, where users can get involved in continuous practice in virtual spaces where actions have no real-life consequences. However, in order to provide evidence of the effectiveness of digital games, when used in the context of school entrepreneurship education, we need rigorous evaluation methods. Existing efforts have mostly adopted outcomes-based evaluation approaches with very few research studies attempting to systematically focus on the characteristics and affordances of digital games. Within this context, the aim of this book chapter is to (a) analytically describe the role of digital games as tools for supporting school entrepreneurship education and (b) propose a framework for evaluating the effectiveness of digital games in the specific domain of application.