Experiencing university through playing property

Problem: Junior high school students are encouraged to explore their preferences as learners and engage in a range of activities to develop understanding of work, careers and post-school destinations. Higher education providers contribute to the school students’ exploration through proving campus experience programs structured to aspire young learners and increase enrolments. Experience USC day is an example of an annual junior high engagement program where 3 in 4 participants have indicated that the workshops help with decision-making about their career. For leaders of property programs these workshops are an opportunity to create an engaging experience to promote study programs and encourage participation in the property profession. Design/method/approach: This paper communicates the design science research method activities of demonstration and evaluation as they are applied to a serious game, Playing Property. Playing Property is an audience response game forming the basis of a workshop to engage junior high students and enhance their knowledge of property investment. The evaluation discusses trends in audience response decisions along with survey responses from 12 workshops, conducted over 3 years. Findings: The workshops were consistently rated positively by the vast majority of participating students, with a majority indicating they learned more about property [investment] through playing Playing Property. Comparatively the results were in-line with other hands-on workshop activities facilitated by academic leaders from other disciplines. The resource allocation to the Playing Property workshop is notably less than comparable workshops and the ability capture decision making data provides a sound basis for further analysis. Research limitations: While the potential of game-enhanced learning has emerged, there remain numerous opportunities for future research to empirically confirm, or refute, the claim, and design new serious games and artefacts for analysis