Using digital business simulators in economic and managerial development of masters in information technologies

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Using digital business simulators in economic and managerial development of masters in information technologies

Dmytro S. Antoniuk, PhD in Pedagogics, Associate Professor, Associate Professor of the Department of Software Engineering, Zhytomyr Polytechnic State University, Oleg M. Spirin, Doctor of Pedagogical Sciences, Professor, Vice-Rector for Research and Digitalization, State Higher Educational Institution “University of Educational Management”, Chief Scientific Officer of the Department of Open Educational and Scientific Information Systems, Institute for Digitalisation of Education of the National Academy of Educational Sciences of Ukraine, Tetiana A. Vakaliuk, Doctor of Pedagogical Sciences, Professor, Professor of the Department of Software Engineering Zhytomyr Polytechnic State University, Leading Researcher of the Department of Network Technology and Databases of the Department of Open Educational and Scientific Information Systems, Institute for Digitalisation of Education of the National Academy of Educational Sciences of Ukraine

Анотація

Стаття обґрунтовує використання цифрових бізнес-симуляторів як різновиду цифрових освітніх ресурсів для розвитку знань, умінь, навичок, персонального ставлення, здатності приймати рішення в економіко-управлінській підготовці магістрів галузі інформаційних технологій. Використання цифрових бізнес-симуляторів в освітньому процесі надає можливість проводити експерименти для досягнення мети освітньої та науково - дослідної діяльності. Використання цифрового бізнес-симулятора “Дизайн контрактів та дилема Принципала і Агента” дає змогу змоделювати ситуації, наближені до реальності та сприяти формуванню базового персонального ставлення та розуміння теорії контрактових зобов'язань та дизайну ринків з асиметричною інформацією у сфері економічних та управлінських наук. Ці концепти є важливими для майбутніх спеціалістів у галузі інформаційних технологій, які будуть взаємодіяти в командах та розвиватись у сфері управління людьми та проєктами.

Introduction

The problem statement. The latest development in information technology and pedagogical science enables and forces usage of the digital educational resources in the educational process of a variety of institutions. Scientists develop the resources and appropriate methodic and teachers-practitioners are implementing such resources in the educational process and provide feedback for improvement and further development. Business simulations are one of the types of digital educational resources.

Using business simulation for educational and research purposes has been in practice for centuries. This practice was theoretically developed and institutionalized as the educational method within the latest half of the century. The method of simulated experiences could be implemented within a traditional classroom setup or with the help of digital educational resources. The COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine further proved the need for immersive socializing educational activities for all levels of education. The educational gap, created by the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine requires introducing of highly- effective educational methods and technologies. At the same time, they have to win the students' attention from other attractors and distractors. The need for the efficiency of the approaches is dictated by the limitations of time and funds in Ukraine, as well as in other countries. Simulation technologies have the potential to become part of the solution to the challenge. In addition to serving educational needs, they enable research efforts and allow for a combination of these two activities. This format of business simulation usage introduces active learning and socializing to the classrooms and provides researchers with environments for educational, applied, and theoretical experimentation.

Analysis of recent studies and publications

The researchers and education practitioners advocated classroom experiments to augment traditional forms of education [1]. Lin T.C. shows the advantage of in-class gameplay for learning outcomes and attendance of the students. The experiment on the causes and forms of bounded rationality in individual choice Anna Rita Bennato and others describe in their work [2]. Multiple offline games were developed to be conducted as a classroom experiment with an educational purpose. Bei Hong describes how to introduce active learning to the Global Supply Management Class by playing appropriate scenarios in card-based simulation prepared in advance [3]. The concept of heterogeneous firms in international trade was implemented in the classroom simulation by Nathaniel P S. Cook and Angie Pantuosco at the Department of Economics, Furman University, Greenville, SC, USA [4]. Classroom experiments using simulations in the paper-based setup or with the use of digital tools were successfully conducted in the schools also. Oleksii Ignatenko conducts this kind of educational experiment with Ukrainian school students. Guessing games experiments in school education and their analysis are part of his work, described in the series of articles [5, 6].

The development of computer-based simulations made it easier to conduct time- constrained and, at the same time, mass-scale experimental educational activities. Business simulations are a class of digital education resources created and used to teach game theory, decision-making, and economic, financial, social, and behavioral concepts. At the same time, it allows further study and research of such effects in different occupations, geographies, or setups. It helps fine-tune findings and advance the knowledge and tools available to improve policy design and delivery, decision-making, and incentive schemas' construction.

Different schools in a wide range of theoretical and practical domains use business simulators in education and supplemental research activities. Applied research on the use of business simulations in education and research has gotten significant attention in the previous decades and is growing in scale nowadays. The artificially created game “The Red/Blue Simulation” was created to teach the problem of collective actions [7]. The game was implemented by the “Economic Games” and “Simulation lab” simulation platforms [8; 9].

The organizational and technical challenge of implementing digital educational resources in the form of computer-based business simulations into the educational process arises from the not-yet institutionalized approach of integration with already-used IT systems. The problem of integrating business simulation software into the learning environment of educational institutions was studied by the authors earlier. The integration approaches were described in the article on the topic [10].

Principal-Agent dilemma describes the conflict of interests in the relations where one person or entity (“the principal”) delegates taking actions on his/her behalf to the other person or entity (“the agent”) [11, 12]. The metaphor of "Contract" describes the relationships between the principal and the agent. The principal-Agent dilemma manifests itself in employment contracting, energy consumption in landlord-tenant relations, personnel management, elected and appointed officials' behavior, trust relations, and other situations.

In their classroom experiment, Simon Gachter and Manfred Konigstein studied Contract Design and Principal-Agent dilemma [13]. This article is dedicated to the imitated experience conducted using the Contract Design and Principal-Agent dilemma simulation described above and implemented by the “Economic Games” platform [8].

The concept of "business simulators" and the possibilities of their use in the educational process was considered by the authors in previous works [10].

The research goal. Given this, the purpose of the article is to highlight the experience of using digital business simulation to conduct educational activities in the process of economic and management education of the Master of IT and to analyze the results of the interaction in the imitated environment.

Research methods

The authors designed the educational activity and conducted it with the master's in information technology project management students as the part of “Business in IT” course. 38 participants were involved in 3 rounds of simulated experience of the Contract Design and Principal-Agent dilemma. The simulation was intended to:

- introduce classroom environment and simulation technologies to the students of IT specialty for the future usage of these educational methods, forms, and technologies in the educational process;

- deepen the knowledge of the concepts in management, economy, and game theory such as principal-agent dilemma, decision-making, contractual relations, people motivation, and information asymmetry;

- introduce to and develop the “attitudinal and behavioral” component of the economic and managerial competence of IT specialties students;

- introduce students to the concepts of justice and reciprocity in personal and professional relations and their influence on the decision-making and contractual conditions development.

The group of students is homogenous in terms of the specialty chosen. Master in Information Technology Project Management is the program of study. At the same time, the grout was heterogeneous enough. The group of students had the following characteristics:

- had a wide variety of previous Bachelor majors - IT, philology, economics, management, engineering;

- had different previous occupations - IT, education, banking, engineering;

- the age was from 21 to 46 years old.

- The duration of post-graduation work experience ranges from:

- from “zero” for the students who started their master's degree just after Bachelor program graduation;

- to twenty-five years of post-graduate work experience.

The gender structure of the group is in Fig. 1.

Figure 1 The gender structure of Ukrainian IT Market specialists

We may see that the group of students has 13% of female participants in comparison with 23% of the female representative of the Ukrainian IT market on average in Ukraine. The hypothesis is that the difference might be attributed to the tendency of females to switch to IT occupations after graduating from other non-IT specialties at the universities.

Each round consisted of two parts. In the first part, participants acted as the principal, offering contractual conditions. In the second part, participants acted as the agent, deciding to reject or accept the offer and choosing the level of effort to be put in.

The simulation was conducted without preliminary detailed analysis of the economic concepts and mathematical methods of optimization of the outcomes of the actions. All the students in the group had the necessary general knowledge to understand the simulated situation and make simple economic and mathematical judgments and calculations. The time provided to make decisions in the rounds was not sufficient to conduct precise mathematical calculations of the simulated situation for the majority of the students. It was additionally proved by the observed behavior of the students during the simulation.

The results and discussion

Contract Design and Principal-Agent dilemma simulation implemented by the "Economic Games" platform were used as the digital educational resources to conduct this research, in the “Business in IT” class for master's students of IT Project Management specialty.

The authors for the following reasons use the Economic Games:

- It is easy to organize, conduct and analyze the results of the simulation for the groups of students of moderate size. Bigger groups might be better served by the simulation collections integrated into a learning management or other system to manage access to the simulation and analytics.

- An open collection can be used freely for educational, entertainment, or research purposes.

- The collection proposes simple simulations with reasonable quality and stability of use in moderate groups of students.

- Academically affiliated authors with knowledge of academic and research-related needs and requirements created the collection.

The Economic Games site [8] contains options for single and multiplayer games. Singleplayer games highlight such concepts as price discrimination, competition, monopoly, horizontal differentiation, pricing, and contracting theory. These games are suitable for concept demonstration by the teacher or facilitator or for self-study by the students. The bigger part of the library is represented by multiplayer games, dedicated to the following categories: industrial organization, IO market games, externalities, and public goods, game theory, Information asymmetry, finance, and macro. Some simulations care about the influence of the particular environment or the situation, while others are mathematical and behavioral games, that provides a more pure, problem-agnostic experience and learning experience. Multiplayer simulations might be used for group simulated experience with the facilitator, teacher, or teaching assistant, organizing, conducting, and debriefing the results of the educational activity.

Contract Design and Principal-Agent dilemma simulation were chosen due to the existing need to introduce students to the concepts in their academic course. The choice of the vendor has been substantiated previously in this article and the choice of the simulation was dictated by the academic need within the course of study. The simulation is a multiplayer game and is one of the options to choose from in the "Information Asymmetry" part of the catalog. The setup of the simulation to start using it is simple. Figure 3 depicts the convenience and easiness of setting up the simulation for the group of students directly in the catalog.

The computer-based multiplayer simulators can be used to facilitate a wide range of methods of education. This work describes the educational imitated activity that uses an active learning method to study the concepts, work with the parameters of the environment of the concept, develops a basic level of personal attitude, and puts the ground for the future use of the other forms in studying the proposed concept. The simulated experience with the use of the digital educational resource was used in this case to initiate a productive lecture on the topic of the principal-agent dilemma, which is one of the cornerstones of the managerial and economic development of individuals. The active learning experience showed practical controversy and the complex nature of its potential solutions to the students. This ignited my interest and involvement in the next lectures and practical discussions on the topic. The "markets with asymmetric information" was another concept that was introduced during the simulated experience. This concept attracted the attention of the students and paved the way for the successful usage of problem-based learning, involving discussion, group analysis of the situations, and synthesis of the hypothesis for the improvement of the efficiency of the markets.

Educational scientists and practitioners are developing methods and assessing the efficiency and effectiveness of using simulated environments in different forms of educational interventions. The studies cover a wide range of research from the approaches of introducing simulated experience into educational activities to assessing the effectiveness of such interventions. “Simulation-based education involving online and on-campus models in different European universities" by the authors from Spanish and Dutch universities examines the use of simulation-enabled educational models in the universities in online and on-campus setups [15]. The research of Garry Falloon from Macquarie University proves the transferability of simulations - enabled knowledge and skills transferability to real-world tasks for younger students [16]. The lectures become more immersive and persuasive when simulated environments are used for the visualization of demonstration of the theoretical concepts and problems with practical problems presented. Contractual relations and the markets with information asymmetry are the key concepts to attract the attention of the students to using Contract Design and Principal-Agent dilemma simulation. Injections of the simulated experience to the lectures help attract the attention of the students and stimulate further interest in the topic discussed in the class.

Practical labs help to develop behavioral and attitudinal components of the appropriate competencies. ICT allows teachers to organize educational environments and processes to combine predictability and repeatability of the environment with the always-new particular experience and findings for the students and the scientific research of the teacher, if in the same field with the simulations or the processes. Multi-user simulations allow to involvement whole group of students in practical experience that will incorporate some traits of particular individuals into the content of the problem-based education happening in the lab. Students can feel the reality of the problem and what is more important - the reality of the actions, executed by their particular peers and not by abstract actors in case of studying the experience of others. Personal involvement in the simulated environments and educational experience with the other close peers causes deeper interest in the topic and more extensive future reflections. Both, formal retrospectives in the classroom and informal discussions with the other participating peers. Experiences from the practical labs create motivating grounds for future lectures, in-class discussions, and self-studies.

Self-study with the usage of the simulators is being organized in form of reflection essays, extensive practicing, inter-student interactive exercises, or other appropriate and productive formats, depending on the domain of study, particular class, and type of program. A reflection essay is one of the valuable forms of self-study, formative, or summative assessment. Extensive practicing can be organized for one student in single-player simulations or the form of simulated multi-player experiences. This form of practicing allows the creation of an immersive and usually unique educational environment for each student in the group. Inter-student interactive exercises might be in form of regular or competition-like simulated experiences. It enables group-based motivational factors and at the same time competition-based factors of personal motivations. Due to the unique configurations and in-progress development of the simulated environments, this type of self-study might require additional efforts if assessment or grading is expected. At the same time this type of experience, if properly organized, conducted, and used afterward, is the source for the scientific research quantitative data and qualitative input.

Let us consider in detail the process of preparation, implementation, and analysis of the results of using this simulator in the university's educational process.

Some players need to be defined in the simulation setup phase, and logins and passwords need to be created by the facilitator in batches and distributed among the participants.

The teacher or facilitator gets access to the administrator's page where the flow of the simulation and preliminary results are being monitored.

38 participants participated in the simulated experience of the Contract Design and Principal-Agent dilemma for 3 rounds. Each round consisted of decision-making on behalf of "the Owner of the business" (Principal) and "the Expert" (Agent). The expert had full information to make a rationally optimal decision and the owner had to guess the reaction of the expert to the proposed contract conditions.

Figure 2 Final aggregated results of the simulation

It needs to be disclosed that the Round 2 of the simulated experience was influenced by the mistake in the actions of the administrator. Fig. 2 shows evidence of the influence of such a mistake on the results of Round 2. It led to the fact that the fixed part and return share was set to "0" for all the participants. Despite the inability to use the data from Round 2 for general and trend analysis of the game, this specific set of input data highlighted particular factors of decision-making. Despite the inability gets any gain, 4 participants out of 38 have accepted their offers. 3 out of 4 experts, who accepted the offers chose to put in a high level of effort (8 to 10). The 4-the participant who accepted the offer chose to put the level of effort, equal to "3". In all these cases total value created was higher than the sum of the "Cost of work effort of the expert" and "Alternative cost" for the expert. This generosity or the belief in the need to generate bigger total value for the society resulted in the creating value (Total return, in terms of the simulation) and a positive payoff for the owner. In a real-life situation, this behavior of the expert could result either just in a higher value created for society or even in the possibility to claim a share of the income, received by the owner. The mistake made by the administrator in the process of the simulation led to:

- additional unexpected findings about the factors in decision-making in the contracting and Principal-Agent dilemma related situations;

- highlighting the specific traits of people in the group of students;

- learning outcomes for the participants of the simulation.

The situation, caused by the mistake in active learning, supported by the simulation as the digital education resource, proved to be generating new knowledge and develop competency, as the result, being valuable for educational and scientific purposes. The format and the environment of conducting the simulated educational experience are depicted in fig. 3. Google Meet platform and multi-tab browser setup were used.

Figure 3 Simulation experience guided by videoconference and preliminary results

The analysis of the fixed part of the payment to the expert has been visualized in Fig. 4 Participants tended to decrease the fixed part of the payment to the expert. Maximum and minimum amounts of the fixed payments went down in Round 3 in comparison to Round 1. The Mean of the fixed part of the payment is lower in Round 3 compared to Round 1 (129 in comparison to 180). The median of the fixed part of the payment at the same time is higher in Round 3 compared to Round 1 (135 in comparison to 120). It proves the trend to offer lower fixed parts. A small number of rounds (learning iterations) did not give the possibility for participants to substantially learn to rationally maximize the profit, offering motivating contract conditions to the expert. At the same time, the students already acknowledged anecdotal evidence of the lower influence of the fixed part of the payment on the motivation of the Agent.

Detailed analysis of the atomic simulation round and personal results of the students are shown in Fig.5

Figure 4 Fixed Payment. Box and whisker chart

Figure 5 Personal detailed results for the round of simulated experience

The analysis of the fixed part of the return share with the expert has been visualized in Fig. 6 Median is the same for both rounds and is equal to 0,5. It shows that the majority of the participants' group keeps a strong preference to offer a share proportion close to 50/50. This preference would be changing in case of multi-round iterations of the simulation and getting deeper into mathematical optimization of the implemented rules of economic relations. The Mean of the return share grows from 0,44 (44%) to 0,47 (47%). Two median quartiles of the values are in the range of 0,3 to 0,6. This range might be also explained by the tendency of the participants' group to gravitate to the average (50/50) share proportion. Participants tended to increase return share to the expert. It is in line with the scientific results of the analysis of these types of relations between the owners of the business and the hired managers (experts). The Clustered column chart, presented in Fig. 9 shows the experimentation attempts of the group. 32 out of 38 participants have changed their proposal for the return share from Round 1 to Round 3.

Figure 6. Return share. Box and whisker chart

Table 1. Gender-related differences in the results