Gamification to avoid cognitive biases: An experiment of gamifying a forecasting course

Nikoletta Zampeta Legaki; Kostas Karpouzis; Vassilios Assimakopoulos; Juho Hamari

doi:10.1016/j.techfore.2021.120725

Gamification to avoid cognitive biases: An experiment of gamifying a forecasting course

Nikoletta Zampeta Legaki^*
, Kostas Karpouzis
, Vassilios Assimakopoulos
, Juho Hamari

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Scientific › peer-review

46 Citations (Scopus)

47 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

In their daily lives, people are confronted with situations where they need to form a schema of possible future scenarios and the likelihood of them occurring, be it about climate change, economic up- or downturn, or even the potential success of a romantic date. Be these issues of mundane or universal importance, this judgmental forecasting poses people with a difficult pervasive cognitive challenge. Commonly, judgmental forecasting is taught in forecasting courses syllabi, and the pedagogy surrounding it is challenging. However, gamification and game-based learning have risen as promising tools to simulate different kinds of scenarios and stimulate cognitive problem solving. This study investigates the effects of a gamified application with points, levels, challenges, storytelling and leaderboard for teaching judgmental forecasting by conducting a 2×2 between-subjects experiment (treatments: i) read: yes vs no, and ii) gamification: yes vs no), with a sample of 285 students of a School of Electrical and Computer Engineering and a Business Administration Department. The findings indicate that the gamified application improved learning outcomes regarding the heuristics and biases that affect judgmental forecasting by almost 15%, supporting the use of gamification in forecasting education.

Original language	English
Article number	120725
Number of pages	19
Journal	Technological Forecasting and Social Change
Volume	167
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2021.120725
Publication status	Published - Jun 2021
Publication type	A1 Journal article-refereed

Funding

This work was supported by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie [grant agreement ID 840809] and by Academy of Finland Flagship Programme [337653 - Forest-Human-Machine Interplay (UNITE)]. A part of the work-in-progress version of this work was presented in International GamiFIN Conference 2018, 2019 and in HICSS-52 2019 52nd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences. Prof. Vassilios Assimakopoulos is a professor of Forecasting Systems at the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering of the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA). He is the author of over than 60 original publications and papers in international journals and conferences. Moreover, he has conducted research on innovative tools for management support and decision systems design, in numerous projects, funded by National and European institutes. He specializes in various fields of Strategic Management, Design and Development of Information systems, Business Resource Management, Statistical and Forecasting Techniques using time series.

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

SDG 13 Climate Action

Keywords

Decision Making
Education
Forecasting
Gamification
Judgment Bias
Teaching

Publication forum classification

Publication forum level 3

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Business and International Management
Applied Psychology
Management of Technology and Innovation

Access to Document

10.1016/j.techfore.2021.120725Licence: CC BY-NC-ND

Gamification to avoid cognitive biases
CC BY-NC-ND
Final published version, 6.97 MBLicence: CC BY-NC-ND

http://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:tuni-202107096266Licence: CC BY-NC-ND

Cite this

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title = "Gamification to avoid cognitive biases: An experiment of gamifying a forecasting course",

abstract = "In their daily lives, people are confronted with situations where they need to form a schema of possible future scenarios and the likelihood of them occurring, be it about climate change, economic up- or downturn, or even the potential success of a romantic date. Be these issues of mundane or universal importance, this judgmental forecasting poses people with a difficult pervasive cognitive challenge. Commonly, judgmental forecasting is taught in forecasting courses syllabi, and the pedagogy surrounding it is challenging. However, gamification and game-based learning have risen as promising tools to simulate different kinds of scenarios and stimulate cognitive problem solving. This study investigates the effects of a gamified application with points, levels, challenges, storytelling and leaderboard for teaching judgmental forecasting by conducting a 2{\texttimes}2 between-subjects experiment (treatments: i) read: yes vs no, and ii) gamification: yes vs no), with a sample of 285 students of a School of Electrical and Computer Engineering and a Business Administration Department. The findings indicate that the gamified application improved learning outcomes regarding the heuristics and biases that affect judgmental forecasting by almost 15\%, supporting the use of gamification in forecasting education.",

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author = "Legaki, \{Nikoletta Zampeta\} and Kostas Karpouzis and Vassilios Assimakopoulos and Juho Hamari",

note = "Funding Information: This work was supported by the European Union{\textquoteright}s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie [grant agreement ID 840809] and by Academy of Finland Flagship Programme [337653 - Forest-Human-Machine Interplay (UNITE)]. A part of the work-in-progress version of this work was presented in International GamiFIN Conference 2018, 2019 and in HICSS-52 2019 52nd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences. Funding Information: Prof. Vassilios Assimakopoulos is a professor of Forecasting Systems at the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering of the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA). He is the author of over than 60 original publications and papers in international journals and conferences. Moreover, he has conducted research on innovative tools for management support and decision systems design, in numerous projects, funded by National and European institutes. He specializes in various fields of Strategic Management, Design and Development of Information systems, Business Resource Management, Statistical and Forecasting Techniques using time series. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2021 The Author(s)",

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AU - Assimakopoulos, Vassilios

AU - Hamari, Juho

N1 - Funding Information: This work was supported by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie [grant agreement ID 840809] and by Academy of Finland Flagship Programme [337653 - Forest-Human-Machine Interplay (UNITE)]. A part of the work-in-progress version of this work was presented in International GamiFIN Conference 2018, 2019 and in HICSS-52 2019 52nd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences. Funding Information: Prof. Vassilios Assimakopoulos is a professor of Forecasting Systems at the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering of the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA). He is the author of over than 60 original publications and papers in international journals and conferences. Moreover, he has conducted research on innovative tools for management support and decision systems design, in numerous projects, funded by National and European institutes. He specializes in various fields of Strategic Management, Design and Development of Information systems, Business Resource Management, Statistical and Forecasting Techniques using time series. Publisher Copyright: © 2021 The Author(s)

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N2 - In their daily lives, people are confronted with situations where they need to form a schema of possible future scenarios and the likelihood of them occurring, be it about climate change, economic up- or downturn, or even the potential success of a romantic date. Be these issues of mundane or universal importance, this judgmental forecasting poses people with a difficult pervasive cognitive challenge. Commonly, judgmental forecasting is taught in forecasting courses syllabi, and the pedagogy surrounding it is challenging. However, gamification and game-based learning have risen as promising tools to simulate different kinds of scenarios and stimulate cognitive problem solving. This study investigates the effects of a gamified application with points, levels, challenges, storytelling and leaderboard for teaching judgmental forecasting by conducting a 2×2 between-subjects experiment (treatments: i) read: yes vs no, and ii) gamification: yes vs no), with a sample of 285 students of a School of Electrical and Computer Engineering and a Business Administration Department. The findings indicate that the gamified application improved learning outcomes regarding the heuristics and biases that affect judgmental forecasting by almost 15%, supporting the use of gamification in forecasting education.

AB - In their daily lives, people are confronted with situations where they need to form a schema of possible future scenarios and the likelihood of them occurring, be it about climate change, economic up- or downturn, or even the potential success of a romantic date. Be these issues of mundane or universal importance, this judgmental forecasting poses people with a difficult pervasive cognitive challenge. Commonly, judgmental forecasting is taught in forecasting courses syllabi, and the pedagogy surrounding it is challenging. However, gamification and game-based learning have risen as promising tools to simulate different kinds of scenarios and stimulate cognitive problem solving. This study investigates the effects of a gamified application with points, levels, challenges, storytelling and leaderboard for teaching judgmental forecasting by conducting a 2×2 between-subjects experiment (treatments: i) read: yes vs no, and ii) gamification: yes vs no), with a sample of 285 students of a School of Electrical and Computer Engineering and a Business Administration Department. The findings indicate that the gamified application improved learning outcomes regarding the heuristics and biases that affect judgmental forecasting by almost 15%, supporting the use of gamification in forecasting education.

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KW - Judgment Bias

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DO - 10.1016/j.techfore.2021.120725

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VL - 167

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ER -

Gamification to avoid cognitive biases: An experiment of gamifying a forecasting course

Abstract

Funding

UN SDGs

Keywords

Publication forum classification

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Access to Document

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Cite this