Beyond Grades: Soft Skills Training and Assessment with Game-Based Learning Apps

How do you stand apart in the modern workplace? In a remote or hybrid environment, soft skills are more important than ever. According to a Harvard University study, 80% of career achievements hinge on soft skills, with only 20% attributed to hard skills. Other studies go even higher, suggesting 85% influence from soft skills and 15% from hard skills, which underscores the often-overlooked value of soft skills.

So how do you inculcate soft skills in your employees? 

One interesting way is through the use of game-based learning and gamification.

Game-based soft skills training

Playing is one of the best ways to enhance learning, and incorporating game-based learning into curricula is getting easier as well as more necessary. Game-based learning is gaining popularity worldwide as it has been shown to increase retention of knowledge, student engagement, and motivation while developing soft skills such as communication, leadership, and collaboration. 

Take the example of OurCity, a Facebook city-building and civic education game. It isn’t just fun, but empowers players with civic knowledge and awareness, fostering active citizenship to contribute to stronger, healthier communities meeting residents’ needs. In addition, the game cultivates soft skills such as strategic planning and problem-solving. 

Robot Run, by Kahoot!, encourages learners to use teamwork, communication, and quick decision-making to escape an angry robot (fun times!). These are just two examples of games that train learners on essential soft skills as well as providing entertainment – and some hard skills too.

A 2021 paper on ‘Engaging students in the learning process with game-based learning’ explains that since almost all youth play digital and/or non-digital games, serious games are key to providing faster, more engaging, and more successful learning. 

What soft skills can games teach?

Essentially, any or all of them. Here’s a non-exhaustive list.

• Problem-solving skills: Players learn to analyze situations, devise strategies, and adapt to changing circumstances through games.
• Resource management: Many games involve managing limited resources – time, currency, or supplies. This in effect teaches players to prioritize and allocate resources efficiently.
• Multitasking: Real-time strategy or fast-paced action games require players to perform multiple tasks simultaneously, which improves a person’s capacity to handle various inputs at once.
• Teamwork: Many multiplayer games require players to work together towards a common goal, which helps with improving levels of teamwork, communication, and collaboration.
• Leadership: In team-based games, players may take on leadership roles, making decisions, and coordinating actions, which can help develop leadership qualities.
• Adaptability: Players learn to adapt quickly to new situations, adjust strategies, and cope with unexpected developments.
• Creativity: Games with open-world environments or creative modes encourage players to express their creativity.
• Empathy: Story-driven games immerse players in emotionally engaging narratives, which improves emotional intelligence.

So how do you assess soft skills using game-based learning?

Different skills need different assessment techniques. Here are some examples.

• Communication Skills: Set up simulations to evaluate how well individuals convey ideas, actively listen, and respond to feedback within the game environment.
• Problem-Solving Abilities: Present complex challenges within the game to analyze the strategies and decisions individuals make to overcome obstacles, showcasing their problem-solving skills.
• Adaptability and Resilience: Introduce unexpected changes or setbacks in the game to observe how individuals adapt to unforeseen circumstances and challenges.
• Team Collaboration: Set up multiplayer scenarios that require teamwork to evaluate how well each individual collaborates, communicates, and contributes to achieving common objectives in the game. You can also adapt the same scenarios to assess leadership skills.
• Time Management: Establish time-sensitive tasks to help judge efficient task prioritization.
• Creativity and Innovation: Include open-ended challenges to evaluate the unique solutions and ideas generated in the game.
• Negotiation Skills: Simulate negotiation situations to assess how individuals navigate discussions, find common ground, and reach mutually beneficial outcomes.

You may have noticed that in none of these examples do we recommend that the entire game be about the soft skill in question. For instance, take the negotiation skills example above. What should the negotiation situations pertain to? Perhaps a conversation about the best technical solution or architecture for a new feature? Each individual makes a particular choice and works to convince the others in the group. This way, negotiation skills are practiced through a discussion of specific technical solutions.

A blend of soft skills with hard skills in your game-based learning app is the most efficient way to deliver and assess soft skills training. A curriculum-based app with a soft skills overlay could work well. Consider a multi-player system where you get extra points for team collaboration, courtesy, communication, etc. 

Mitigating challenges in soft skills assessment using game-based learning

Soft skills assessment in general is challenging because soft skills are subjective and context-dependent. Interpreting behaviors in a game scenario might vary between assessors. This can be rectified through assessor training, clear assessment criteria – or even better, an AI-powered automated evaluator. Establishing standardized benchmarks could be a challenge for the same reason. It’s important to develop the standards before evolving an assessment tool and to regularly update these standards from time to time.

Games may not fully replicate the complexity and nuances of real-life work situations, limiting the assessment’s contextual relevance. To the extent possible, design scenarios that closely mirror real-world situations and encourage natural responses.

There are real benefits to game-based soft skills assessments. At the same time, there are challenges to implementation. In addition to resolving these challenges, you can strengthen the evaluation process by combining game-based assessments with other methods, for a holistic view. Discuss the right assessment strategies with the e-learning experts. Talk to Hornbill FX today.