GAMIFICATION OF EMPLOYMENT

Funding programme

Erasmus+ KA205 – Strategic Partnerships for Youth

Project reference

2018-2-ES02-KA205-011702

Period

2018–2020

Coordinating organisation

Fundación ASPAYM Castilla y León

Participating countries

Spain, Portugal, Italy, Romania

Official project website

Visit official website

The Gamification of Employment aimed to identify, develop and assess transversal competences relevant to youth employability through structured educational workshops based on existing commercial board games.

The project addressed the need for inclusive and innovative non-formal learning methods, with particular attention to young people with fewer opportunities and those at risk of social exclusion.

Rather than creating a new educational game, the partnership selected established recreational games whose mechanics provide opportunities to practise behaviours associated with communication, teamwork, negotiation, problem-solving and decision-making.

Specific learning objectives

• Communication: Develop verbal expression, active listening, interpretation of information and the ability to communicate ideas clearly.
• Teamwork: Encourage participants to cooperate, distribute responsibilities, contribute to collective objectives and respond constructively to other group members.
• Strategic thinking: Practise anticipating consequences, evaluating alternatives and organising actions towards medium- or long-term objectives.
• Negotiation: Develop the ability to formulate proposals, communicate interests, consider alternative offers and reach agreements with other players.
• Problem-solving: Encourage participants to analyse unfamiliar situations, identify relevant information and generate possible solutions.
• Creativity: Stimulate imagination, flexible thinking, storytelling and the generation of alternative ideas.
• Decision-making: Provide opportunities to select between different actions, interpret incomplete information and accept responsibility for individual choices.
• Critical thinking: Encourage participants to evaluate information, question assumptions and justify their decisions.
• Interpersonal awareness: Help participants recognise how their behaviour affects the experiences, decisions and participation of other players.
• Leadership and group participation: Explore the balance between leading, contributing, following others and respecting different approaches to a common challenge.
• Emotional awareness: Encourage participants to recognise their feelings during competition, cooperation, uncertainty, success and failure.
• Self-confidence: Provide opportunities for young people to participate, express ideas and reflect on personal strengths in a supportive environment.
• Self-assessment: Help participants identify their perceived competencies, difficulties and areas for personal development.
• Reflection and transfer: Encourage participants to connect behaviours experienced during gameplay with situations encountered in everyday life, education and employment.
• Employability awareness: Increase understanding of the importance of transversal competences in recruitment, professional relationships and workplace performance.
• Inclusive participation: Provide accessible opportunities for young people facing social barriers or disadvantage to practise relevant competencies through non-formal education.
• Educator competences: Equip youth workers, teachers and employment counsellors with a practical methodology for selecting games, facilitating sessions, observing behaviour and supporting reflection.
• Pedagogical transferability: Develop multilingual educational resources allowing organisations outside the original partnership to reproduce the workshop methodology.

The project’s educational objectives concern transversal competences rather than the acquisition of knowledge about the themes represented by the commercial games.

For example, Pandemic is used to explore cooperation and strategic thinking, rather than to provide medical or epidemiological education. Similarly, Bohnanza is selected for negotiation practice rather than agricultural learning.

The experience of practising these competencies during gameplay should be distinguished from objectively demonstrated improvements in workplace performance or employment outcomes.

The Gamification of Employment developed a structured educational methodology using existing commercial board games to strengthen transversal competences associated with youth employability.

The project did not develop a new physical board game. Instead, it selected recreational games according to the skills their mechanics and player interactions were considered capable of eliciting.

The core methodology comprises seven workshops using five distinct commercial tabletop games. Two additional commercial games were selected for online activities during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Games used in the seven core workshops

1. Rory’s Story Cubes – Workshops 1 and 7

Rory’s Story Cubes is a storytelling activity using dice with pictorial symbols. Participants interpret the images and construct narratives individually or collectively.

Educational focus: Communication, creativity, self-expression, active listening and group confidence.

Workshop 1 – Getting to Know Each Other and Creativity

The opening workshop uses Story Cubes to introduce participants to one another and create a more comfortable environment for subsequent activities.

Participants begin by expressing their expectations and concerns about the programme. They then use the illustrated dice to construct stories and practise communication.

Collaborative storytelling requires participants to listen to previous contributions, interpret visual information and continue narratives developed by other group members.

Workshop 7 – Personal Development: A Never-ending Story

Story Cubes is used again in the final workshop, providing opportunities for participants to express their experiences, describe perceived learning and reflect on the programme.

The facilitator introduces prompts connecting the stories with participants’ personal development.

Game mechanics: Dice rolling, image interpretation, storytelling, improvisation and collaborative narrative construction.

Methodological note: Story Cubes is more precisely described as a tabletop storytelling dice game than as a conventional board game. Its inclusion is appropriate within a broad analogue tabletop game-based learning framework.

2. Pandemic – Workshop 2

Pandemic is a cooperative board game in which players work together to control the spread of diseases and achieve shared objectives.

Participants use characters with differentiated abilities, manage limited actions and resources, exchange information and coordinate their decisions.

Educational focus: Teamwork, strategic thinking, communication, collective planning and shared responsibility.

The workshop emphasises the need for cooperation. Players cannot complete the mission effectively through isolated individual actions.

The game generates opportunities to observe how participants discuss alternatives, distribute responsibilities, respond to setbacks and balance individual suggestions with the collective objective.

Game mechanics: Cooperative play, asymmetric character abilities, action-point allocation, resource management, shared planning and collective victory or defeat.

Educational integration: Cooperation and strategic planning are intrinsic to the game’s mechanics, making Pandemic a particularly suitable recreational game for discussing teamwork and collaborative decision-making.

3. Bohnanza – Workshops 3 and 6

Bohnanza is a competitive card game in which players grow different varieties of beans and negotiate exchanges with other players to improve their final economic results.

Its central mechanics make trading and negotiation recurrent parts of the playing experience.

Educational focus: Negotiation, persuasion, communication, strategic planning and consideration of other players’ interests.

Workshop 3 – The Power of Negotiation

Participants experience negotiation in a competitive environment where cooperation may produce advantages for both parties even though each player pursues an individual objective.

Players formulate offers, evaluate proposals, explain their interests and decide when to accept or reject exchanges.

Workshop 6 – Negotiate Again and Create a Plan

Bohnanza is deliberately repeated later in the programme.

The second session allows participants to revisit familiar negotiation situations with greater knowledge of the rules and an opportunity to reflect on the strategies they previously employed.

Game mechanics: Trading, negotiation, hand management, set collection, resource optimisation and competitive scoring.

Educational integration: Negotiation is not an external educational exercise attached to the game. It is one of the principal mechanisms through which players pursue success.

4. Unlock! – Workshop 4

Unlock! is a series of cooperative tabletop escape adventures played using cards, puzzles and associated game components.

Participants must interpret clues, connect information and solve challenges before the available time expires.

Educational focus: Problem-solving, creativity, critical thinking, effective communication and teamwork.

The workshop requires participants to combine individual ideas with collective discussion, consider alternative interpretations and respond to challenges that may initially appear difficult.

Players can observe the value of listening to different suggestions and adapting their approach when an attempted solution does not work.

Game mechanics: Cooperative puzzle-solving, information combination, exploration, deduction, time pressure and collaborative decision-making.

Methodological note: Unlock! is a commercial card-based tabletop escape game. It differs from a room-based escape activity because its principal game components are used at the table.

The exact Unlock! scenario or edition selected for the programme is not independently established in the reviewed workshop page.

5. Mysterium – Workshop 5

Mysterium is a cooperative deduction game in which players interpret visual clues provided by a ghost to identify elements of a mystery.

The ghost communicates through illustrated cards rather than ordinary verbal explanations, requiring players to interpret ambiguous information.

Educational focus: Decision-making, interpretation of information, communication, empathy and the consideration of alternative viewpoints.

Participants must analyse the clues, compare possible interpretations and decide which hypotheses to pursue.

The workshop also creates opportunities to observe how participants respond to uncertainty and whether they maintain confidence in their decisions when other players propose alternative interpretations.

Game mechanics: Cooperative deduction, asymmetric communication, visual interpretation, inference and collective problem-solving.

Educational integration: Interpretation and decision-making are necessary parts of the game’s core system, although successful play does not automatically demonstrate that those competencies have improved outside the game.

Additional online games

6. Takenoko – Special Online Workshops

Takenoko is a recreational board game involving the development of a garden, the movement of a gardener and panda, the management of bamboo and the completion of individual objectives.

The project selected it as one of the games suitable for remote educational activities through Board Game Arena.

Potential educational focus: Planning, strategic thinking, flexibility and resource management.

The project provides a special-workshop page and links to explanatory materials, although the available documentation is less detailed than that of the seven core workshops.

7. Saboteur – Special Online Workshops

Saboteur is a card game in which participants construct routes towards hidden objectives while some players may have conflicting roles or intentions.

The project included it as a second game for its remote workshop adaptations.

Potential educational focus: Communication, deduction, strategic thinking, adaptation and interpretation of other players’ behaviour.

Its hidden-role mechanics also require careful facilitation to distinguish behaviour that is appropriate within a recreational game from desirable conduct in professional contexts.

Game approach

Existing commercial tabletop games selected and integrated into a structured non-formal educational methodology.

The project created the learning programme, pedagogical guidance, reflection materials and assessment tools, but did not originate or publish the underlying commercial games.

Availability

The project’s seven workshop descriptions, videos and educational materials remain available through its website.

The games themselves are commercially published products and must generally be obtained through ordinary retail channels or existing game collections.

The project does not provide open print-and-play reproductions of the copyrighted commercial games.

Official project resources:

• Seven Core Workshops – Games and Educational Objectives
• Special Online Workshops – Takenoko and Saboteur
• Educator Handbook and Evaluation Materials

The Gamification of Employment developed a structured Board Game-Based Learning methodology using existing commercial board games to support the identification, development and evaluation of transversal competences relevant to youth employability.

Rather than designing new educational games, the project selected recreational board games whose mechanics and player interactions create opportunities to practise communication, teamwork, negotiation, problem-solving, strategic thinking and decision-making.

The methodology combines gameplay, structured observation, individual reflection and facilitated debriefing within a seven-workshop programme.

Methodological approach

1. Identification of employability competences: The partnership consulted employers from different sectors to identify transversal competences considered important for recruitment and professional performance.
2. Selection of commercial board games: Existing recreational games were selected according to the types of decisions, interactions and challenges their mechanics generate.
3. Development of a structured intervention: The consortium designed seven workshops using five commercial games, including repeated sessions with Bohnanza and Rory’s Story Cubes.
4. Initial participant assessment: Before beginning the programme, participants completed a questionnaire addressing their personal characteristics, expectations and perceptions of relevant transversal competences.
5. Introduction to each session: Facilitators explained the objectives, introduced the selected game and prepared participants for the intended learning experience.
6. Experiential gameplay: Young people participated in recreational board games that required them to communicate, negotiate, cooperate, make decisions or solve problems to achieve the game’s objectives.
7. Structured observation: Observers remained outside the game and recorded participants’ behaviours, interactions and responses to relevant situations.
8. Individual reflection: Participants used a personal diary to record emotions, difficulties, perceived competences and possible applications of the experience to everyday life.
9. Post-game debriefing: Each workshop concluded with facilitated discussion about the game, participants’ decisions, group interaction and the competences practised.
10. Repeated gameplay: Bohnanza and Rory’s Story Cubes were introduced again in later workshops to reinforce the intended competences and encourage reflection on subsequent experiences.
11. Final participant assessment: At the end of the programme, participants completed an evaluation questionnaire corresponding to the initial assessment.
12. Methodological review: Feedback, observations and implementation experiences were used to support the development of the educator handbook and related resources.

The seven-workshop programme

Workshop 1 – Rory’s Story Cubes: Getting to Know Each Other and Creativity

The initial workshop creates an opportunity for participants to introduce themselves, become familiar with one another and develop confidence in the facilitator and the group.

Participants discuss their fears and expectations before using the illustrated dice to create stories and communicate personal ideas.

Principal competencies: Communication, creativity, self-expression and group confidence.

Workshop 2 – Pandemic: Strategic Thinking

Participants play a cooperative game in which they must coordinate their actions to control the spread of diseases and achieve a shared objective.

The mechanics require players to exchange information, consider alternatives, distribute responsibilities and coordinate decisions under constraints.

Principal competencies: Teamwork, strategic thinking, communication, collective decision-making and problem-solving.

Workshop 3 – Bohnanza: The Power of Negotiation

Players manage their cards and bean fields while negotiating exchanges with other participants to maximise their individual economic results.

The game provides repeated opportunities to formulate proposals, assess offers, identify mutually beneficial exchanges and communicate personal interests.

Principal competencies: Negotiation, persuasive communication, adaptability and resource management.

Workshop 4 – Unlock!: Problem-Solving and Escape Adventures

Participants work together to solve interconnected puzzles within a time-limited escape-game scenario.

The activity encourages players to share clues, propose hypotheses, evaluate alternatives and coordinate their efforts to progress through the adventure.

Principal competencies: Problem-solving, creativity, critical thinking, effective communication and teamwork.

Workshop 5 – Mysterium: The Wisdom of Decision-Making

Players attempt to solve a mystery by interpreting visual clues communicated by another participant.

The game creates opportunities to interpret incomplete or ambiguous information, formulate hypotheses and make decisions while considering the perspectives of others.

Principal competencies: Decision-making, visual interpretation, communication, reasoning and collaborative problem-solving.

Workshop 6 – Bohnanza: Negotiation Revisited

Participants return to Bohnanza with previous experience of its mechanics and negotiation opportunities.

The workshop provides another opportunity to examine negotiation strategies, consider different approaches and reflect on the consequences of exchanges with other players.

Principal competencies: Negotiation, planning, communication and strategic adjustment.

Workshop 7 – Rory’s Story Cubes: Personal Development, a Never-Ending Story

The final workshop returns to the illustrated storytelling dice.

Participants use the images to express what they have experienced and learned throughout the programme, responding to tasks introduced by the facilitator.

This session supports communication, creativity and reflection on personal development.

Principal competencies: Self-expression, communication, creativity and reflective learning.

Pedagogical significance of repeated games

The repetition of Bohnanza and Rory’s Story Cubes is a distinctive feature of the programme.

Returning to a familiar game reduces the need to learn its rules from the beginning and creates opportunities to concentrate on player interactions and the competences associated with the activity.

In Bohnanza, participants can reconsider their negotiation strategies and reflect on whether familiarity with the game changes their approach.

In Rory’s Story Cubes, the final workshop provides a context for expressing experiences and reflecting on personal development after completing the other activities.

However, repeated participation alone should not be interpreted as evidence of competence improvement without appropriate comparative assessment.

Facilitator’s role

Facilitators are responsible for preparing the games, introducing the workshop objectives, explaining the rules and maintaining a supportive learning environment.

They also encourage balanced participation and help players identify the relationship between gameplay and relevant employability competences.

During debriefing, facilitators guide discussion without reducing the experience to winning or losing.

They encourage participants to examine their decisions, communication patterns, emotional reactions, relationships with other players and possible applications outside the game.

Observer’s role

The methodology explicitly distinguishes between facilitators, participants and observers.

Observers remain outside gameplay and record relevant behaviours, interactions and participant responses.

This provides a complementary source of information beyond participants’ subjective perceptions of their own competencies.

Observations may concern communication, participation, negotiation, cooperation, initiative and the ways individuals respond to challenging situations.

However, the methodological value of these records depends on the clarity of the observation criteria and the consistency of their application.

Participant’s diary

Each participant receives a personal diary containing game-specific reflection questions.

The diary encourages reflection on emotions, personal decisions, interactions with others and perceived learning.

It also includes recurring prompts asking participants to identify what they learned about themselves, which competences they believe they improved and how they intend to apply these conclusions in everyday life.

For example, the Pandemic questions address personal responsibility, leadership, following others and emotional responses to success or failure.

The Bohnanza questions explore negotiation arguments, personal objectives and the experience of requesting or exchanging resources.

The Mysterium questions focus on decision-making, emotional reactions and the influence of other participants’ opinions.

These prompts connect specific experiences generated by game mechanics with more general behavioural and interpersonal competencies.

Reflection and debriefing

Reflection is an explicit and recurring part of the methodology.

At the end of each workshop, participants complete the relevant diary section and take part in a facilitated conversation about the game and their experiences.

Observers can contribute information about behaviours and interactions recorded during gameplay.

The combination of participant reflection and external observation offers opportunities to compare self-perceptions with visible behaviour.

Debriefing is therefore a central educational component rather than an optional activity added after gameplay.

Assessment structure

The methodology combines initial and final self-report questionnaires, personal diaries and observation records.

The initial and final questionnaires contain corresponding items relating to communication, decision-making, problem-solving, perspective-taking, emotional regulation and group interaction.

This structure provides opportunities to examine perceived changes across the intervention.

Nevertheless, the resulting data should be interpreted according to the measurement properties of the instruments and the evaluation design.

Alternative online workshops

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the partnership also developed guidance for conducting game-based activities remotely.

The special workshops introduced Takenoko and Saboteur as alternative games that could be used through online tabletop platforms.

These activities extend the transferability of the methodology but are distinct from the original seven-workshop sequence.

Distinctive methodological feature

The Gamification of Employment demonstrates how existing commercial board games can be organised into a structured educational programme through competence-based selection, repeated gameplay, external observation, individual reflection and facilitated debriefing.

The educational method is not based on modifying the games to include explicit employment-related questions. Instead, it seeks to connect the decisions and interactions naturally generated by their mechanics with transferable competencies relevant to personal and professional development.

The Gamification of Employment was implemented through an Erasmus+ strategic partnership involving five organisations from Spain, Portugal, Italy and Romania.

The project combined the identification of employability competences, the development of an educational methodology based on existing commercial board games, practical implementation with young participants, structured reflection and the publication of resources for youth workers.

Implementation

• European consortium: Fundación ASPAYM Castilla y León (Spain, coordinator), Universidad Europea Miguel de Cervantes (Spain), CEIPES (Italy), Rosto Solidário (Portugal) and GAMMA Institute (Romania).
• Project reference: 2018-2-ES02-KA205-011702, under Erasmus+ Strategic Partnerships for Youth.
• Project period: 2018–2020, with the project information maintained by Ludus Magnus indicating 1 November 2018 – 31 October 2020.
• Initial competence research: The consortium consulted employers from different sectors to identify generic competences considered important when recruiting personnel.
• Competence selection: Five principal employability-related competences were prioritised through the preliminary research process.
• Methodological development: The partners selected existing commercial board games and designed a structured programme of seven workshops targeting communication, strategic thinking, teamwork, negotiation, problem-solving and decision-making.
• Original educational sequence: The programme comprised Rory’s Story Cubes, Pandemic, Bohnanza, Unlock!, Mysterium, a second Bohnanza workshop and a final Rory’s Story Cubes workshop.
• Planned target sample: The original implementation plan envisaged 150 young participants across the five partner organisations, with 30 participants associated with each partner.
• Two testing phases: The official website states that the seven-workshop methodology was applied in two testing rounds to examine the development of the targeted competences.
• Implementation in Spain: The partnership documented activities involving ASPAYM Castilla y León and Universidad Europea Miguel de Cervantes, including practical application of the methodology in educational settings in Valladolid.
• Implementation in Romania: At the consortium meeting in Iași, the partners presented experiences and results from the initial implementation of the board game-based methodology.
• Individual learning diaries: Participants were provided with structured diaries containing game-specific questions and recurring prompts about their learning, perceived competencies and possible application to everyday life.
• External observation: The methodology included observers who remained outside gameplay and recorded participants’ behaviours and interactions.
• Initial and final questionnaires: The project developed corresponding self-report instruments to examine perceived competencies before and after participation.
• Facilitated debriefing: Each workshop concluded with individual reflection and group discussion concerning the experience and the behaviours observed during gameplay.
• Video documentation: Workshop videos were produced to illustrate the practical methodology and support future implementation by other youth workers.
• COVID-19 adaptation: During the pandemic, the consortium developed alternative online workshops using Board Game Arena and the existing recreational games Takenoko and Saboteur.
• Online implementation: ASPAYM reports online board game workshops conducted during the confinement period.
• Educator handbook: The partnership published a manual describing the educational approach, the selected games, the workshops and the experiences obtained during implementation.
• Public resource platform: The official project website continues to provide workshop descriptions, learning resources, downloadable evaluation instruments and links to audiovisual materials.

Evaluation approach

The project combined self-report assessment, structured behavioural observation, individual reflection and qualitative feedback.

Its evaluation design was intended to examine changes in the transversal competences relevant to employability and to document how participants experienced the learning process.

1. Initial and final questionnaires

The initial and final questionnaires contain 18 corresponding statements addressing several dimensions of personal and interpersonal behaviour.

Participants respond using a six-point agreement scale ranging from strong disagreement to strong agreement.

The statements address behaviours associated with problem-solving, decision-making, communication, perspective-taking, emotional regulation, independence, cooperation and adaptability.

Examples of the areas assessed include:

• Considering available resources when encountering difficulties.
• Reflecting before making important decisions.
• Communicating clearly and avoiding misunderstandings.
• Expressing disagreement or setting interpersonal boundaries.
• Sharing ideas and taking initiative in groups.
• Understanding other people’s perspectives.
• Exploring alternative approaches to problems.
• Managing emotional responses in difficult situations.
• Adapting to new people and changing group circumstances.

The questionnaires also include personal background information and open-ended questions concerning expectations, self-knowledge and perceived competence development.

2. Participant’s diary

The individual diary provides qualitative information about participants’ experiences during the different games.

Each game has specific reflective prompts, alongside questions asking participants to identify what they learned about themselves and how they intend to use their conclusions in everyday life.

This component is particularly relevant because it encourages participants to interpret their own behaviours rather than simply report whether they enjoyed the game.

3. External observation

Observers were instructed to remain outside the game and record relevant player behaviours.

Such observations offer an additional perspective on social interactions, decision-making and other visible actions during gameplay.

However, the publicly reviewed materials do not provide sufficient detail to establish the psychometric properties of the observation system or the consistency of ratings between different observers.

4. Facilitated debriefing

The workshop descriptions identify debriefing as a recurring part of the intervention.

Participants discuss the game, the emotions experienced, their decisions and the interpersonal situations encountered.

Observers may contribute comments on the behaviours they recorded.

This process creates opportunities to compare individual perceptions with the actual interactions observed during play.

5. Repeated workshops

The official project website describes the application of the seven-workshop programme in two testing rounds.

Bohnanza and Rory’s Story Cubes also appear twice within the original seven-session sequence.

These two forms of repetition should be distinguished: one concerns repeated exposure to specific games within a programme, while the other concerns the implementation of the programme across testing phases.

The reviewed sources do not provide sufficient participant-level information to establish whether the same young people completed both testing rounds or how observations were linked between them.

Documented results

The project produced and implemented a structured seven-workshop methodology based on commercial board games.

The official website and partner records confirm practical application, participant reflection and the production of audiovisual materials.

The educator handbook presents the project’s implementation experiences and conclusions.

However, the accessible public sources reviewed do not provide a complete independently verifiable statistical account of the final sample, competence scores, effect sizes or comparisons between participants.

Consequently, no specific percentage improvement or statistically significant change should be attributed to the project without examining the original analytical results.

Evidence classification

Game identification: Five existing commercial games documented in the original workshop sequence, with two additional games used in the online adaptation.

Methodological implementation: Seven structured workshops, practical testing in partner settings and an online adaptation documented.

Assessment instruments: Initial questionnaire, final questionnaire and structured participant diary publicly available.

Behavioural observation: External observation is explicitly incorporated into the methodology.

Reflective learning: Game-specific diary questions and post-game discussion documented.

Learning outcomes: No independently verified quantitative results establishing the magnitude of competence changes were identified in the reviewed accessible sources.

Employment outcomes: No controlled evidence was identified demonstrating that participation increased actual employment rates, improved job retention or led to better recruitment outcomes.

Long-term transfer: Sustained changes in professional behaviour or employability after the intervention were not independently established.

Methodological limitations

Self-report assessment: The initial and final questionnaires measure participants’ reported behaviours and perceptions. They do not directly establish performance improvements in real employment situations.

Psychometric validation: Although the questionnaires are publicly accessible, no independent validation study demonstrating their factorial structure, reliability, measurement invariance or sensitivity to change was identified.

Observer reliability: The use of observers is an important methodological strength, but observer training, inter-rater agreement and the operational definitions of recorded behaviours require further verification.

Sample reporting: The planned target of 150 participants should not be treated as the verified number of participants included in the final evaluation.

Comparison group: No sufficiently documented controlled comparison with equivalent non-game activities or an alternative intervention was identified.

Repeated-game familiarity: Changes in behaviour during repeated exposure may reflect greater familiarity with a game’s rules rather than general improvements in the targeted competence.

Transfer of learning: Demonstrating effective negotiation in Bohnanza or cooperation in Pandemic does not automatically establish equivalent performance during job interviews or workplace interactions.

Intervention heterogeneity: The five games generate different types of decisions and social interactions. The programme should therefore be interpreted as a multi-component intervention rather than a single uniform game-based activity.

COVID-19 disruption: The transition to online workshops introduced differences in delivery, participant interaction and digital access that could affect comparisons between implementation conditions.

Evidence status: Strong evidence of methodological development, educational implementation and structured assessment procedures; limited independently verifiable evidence of measured competence changes and employment-related outcomes.

The Gamification of Employment provides a collection of educational resources supporting the use of commercial board games to identify, practise and reflect on transversal competences relevant to youth employability.

The principal outputs are a structured seven-workshop programme, an educator handbook, participant assessment resources and audiovisual examples of implementation.

Available educational resources

• Educator Handbook: A methodological publication describing the project’s objectives, partnership, educational rationale, target groups, selected games, workshops and conclusions from implementation.
• Seven-workshop programme: Publicly accessible descriptions of the seven learning sessions, including the purpose of each game and the main employability competencies addressed.
• Workshop 1 – Rory’s Story Cubes: Introductory activities promoting communication, creativity, self-expression and group confidence.
• Workshop 2 – Pandemic: Cooperative gameplay supporting discussion of teamwork and strategic decision-making.
• Workshop 3 – Bohnanza: Negotiation activities involving offers, exchanges, competing interests and communication.
• Workshop 4 – Unlock!: Cooperative problem-solving activities using a physical escape-game format.
• Workshop 5 – Mysterium: Activities involving the interpretation of visual information, communication and decision-making.
• Workshop 6 – Bohnanza: Repeated negotiation gameplay allowing participants to reconsider strategies and reflect on subsequent experiences.
• Workshop 7 – Rory’s Story Cubes: Final storytelling activities supporting creativity, communication and reflection on personal development.
• Participant’s Diary: A 15-page reflective resource containing questions for the selected games, personal learning prompts and spaces for recording experiences.
• Initial Evaluation Questionnaire: A two-page form containing personal information, expectations and 18 self-report statements using a six-point agreement scale.
• Final Evaluation Questionnaire: A corresponding two-page form intended for use after completing the programme.
• Behavioural Observation Framework: The project methodology incorporates observers who record relevant player behaviours during gameplay. A complete standalone observation form was not independently verified among the main downloadable files.
• Workshop Videos: Audiovisual resources demonstrating the seven activities and supporting educators in understanding their implementation.
• Video Interviews: Recorded participant experiences and reflections associated with the project.
• Online Workshop Adaptation: Additional instructions for implementing game-based activities remotely through Board Game Arena.
• Takenoko Online Workshop: An alternative digital tabletop activity accompanied by rules guidance.
• Saboteur Online Workshop: An alternative online activity using the mechanics of an existing commercial card game.
• Online Final Reflection: Additional prompts intended to support discussion following remote workshops.
• Project Website: A maintained resource platform containing the project description, methodology, workshop programme, downloads, videos and implementation news.
• Institutional Project Records: Documentation from ASPAYM Castilla y León, Universidad Europea Miguel de Cervantes and Ludus Magnus providing information about the consortium and educational approach.

Commercial game availability

The project did not develop original board games for commercial or educational distribution.

Its methodology relies on existing recreational titles selected for their potential to generate relevant player behaviours and interactions.

Educators wishing to reproduce the seven-workshop programme must therefore obtain appropriate copies of Rory’s Story Cubes, Pandemic, Bohnanza, Unlock! and Mysterium.

The online adaptation also depends on access to authorised digital versions of the selected games.

The public availability of the methodology does not imply that the game components or their original rules are released under an open licence.

Open access and licensing

The educator handbook, participant diary and initial and final evaluation forms are publicly linked from the project website.

However, no uniform Creative Commons licence covering all project documents was independently established during this review.

The copyright and permitted reuse of the project resources should therefore be checked before redistribution or publication of modified versions.

Transferability

The methodology can be implemented in youth centres, vocational guidance programmes, community organisations, educational institutions and other non-formal learning environments.

Its use of commercially available games means that organisations do not need to produce new educational game components.

The educator handbook and workshop videos provide practical support for selecting games and organising sessions.

The individual diary and evaluation forms can help educators document participant experiences and organise reflective learning.

The methodology may also be adapted to different groups by selecting alternative games that generate comparable decisions and interactions.

However, any replacement of the original titles should be justified according to the specific competences targeted and the mechanics of the substitute games.

Replicability assessment

The project provides a relatively high level of practical methodological replicability.

The seven workshops, selected commercial games, reflection procedures and principal evaluation instruments are publicly documented.

The original games remain recognisable and can be obtained through their respective publishers or authorised distribution channels.

However, independent replication of the project’s reported educational effects would require more complete documentation of participant samples, observer instruments, assessment procedures, raw or aggregated results and statistical analyses.

Replicability status: High for the educational methodology and workshop structure; moderate for exact implementation across different target groups; limited for independent replication of learning-outcome evaluation.

Official resources:

• The Gamification of Employment – Official Website
• Educator Handbook and Assessment Downloads
• The Seven Board Game Workshops
• Online Workshops – Takenoko and Saboteur
• Methodology and Implementation Videos

The Gamification of Employment represents a particularly relevant example of European Board Game-Based Learning because it uses existing commercial recreational games as the foundation of a structured educational intervention.

Unlike projects that develop purpose-designed games to communicate specific educational content, this initiative examines whether the decisions, interactions and challenges already present in recreational board games can provide meaningful opportunities for developing transferable competencies.

Its principal methodological contribution lies in combining competence-based game selection with a structured workshop sequence, behavioural observation, individual reflection and facilitated debriefing.

Methodological strengths

1. Use of existing commercial board games. The project demonstrates an alternative to developing new educational games. It selects recreational products whose original mechanics already generate situations involving communication, cooperation, negotiation, problem-solving and decision-making.
2. Educational value independent of the original game design. The selected games were developed primarily for entertainment. Their recreational objectives do not depend on an Erasmus+ project or a particular educational curriculum. This creates opportunities for voluntary participation and continued play outside organised workshops.
3. Intrinsic opportunities for competence practice. In Pandemic, players must coordinate decisions to achieve a shared objective. In Bohnanza, negotiation is a recurrent and meaningful component of gameplay. In Mysterium, participants interpret ambiguous information and make decisions under uncertainty. These behaviours arise from the rules rather than being introduced exclusively through supplementary educational questions.
4. Competence-based game selection. The consortium selected different games according to their potential to generate experiences relevant to specific transversal competencies. This establishes a rationale for choosing games beyond their popularity or entertainment value.
5. Structured multi-session intervention. The programme consists of seven workshops rather than a single isolated gaming experience. This allows participants to encounter different challenges and interpersonal situations across successive sessions.
6. Deliberate repetition of selected games. Bohnanza and Rory’s Story Cubes are used twice within the intervention. Repeated exposure creates opportunities to reconsider strategies, reflect on previous experiences and explore how familiarity influences behaviour.
7. Explicit educational debriefing. Each workshop includes a reflective discussion. This is particularly important because participants may experience relevant behaviours during gameplay without automatically recognising their broader significance.
8. Game-specific reflection questions. The participant diary connects reflection with the characteristics of individual games. Questions concerning negotiation in Bohnanza, leadership in Pandemic and decision-making in Mysterium demonstrate a more precise approach than applying the same generic reflection questions after every activity.
9. Combination of self-report and external observation. The inclusion of observers provides opportunities to document player behaviours independently of participants’ descriptions of their own experiences.
10. Initial and final assessment instruments. The publication of corresponding questionnaires creates a basis for examining perceived changes over the course of the programme, even though the instruments’ measurement properties require further verification.
11. Awareness of emotional processes. The diary includes questions about emotions, frustration, success, responsibility and reactions to other players. This recognises that competence development may involve emotional and interpersonal dimensions as well as cognitive decisions.
12. Potential relevance to diverse participants. The project focuses on young people with fewer opportunities and supports the adaptation of activities to different educational and social contexts.
13. International implementation. The involvement of partners from four countries provides experience of applying the same general methodology within different institutional and cultural environments.
14. Adaptation to remote participation. The additional Takenoko and Saboteur workshops demonstrate an attempt to preserve game-based activities during the COVID-19 pandemic.
15. Public methodological resources. The continued availability of the educator handbook, workshop descriptions, participant diary, questionnaires and videos supports transfer beyond the original partnership.

Methodological limitations

1. Practising a behaviour is not equivalent to improving a competence. Board games can require participants to communicate, negotiate or cooperate. However, observing these behaviours during gameplay does not automatically demonstrate that the underlying competencies have improved.

Competence development requires evidence of change, preferably measured through appropriate instruments and relevant performance tasks.

2. Transfer to professional contexts remains uncertain. Negotiating an exchange in Bohnanza and negotiating conditions in an employment context involve some comparable processes, but they are not equivalent situations.

Similarly, coordinating actions in Pandemic does not necessarily demonstrate improved teamwork in an actual workplace.

The transfer of learning from recreational contexts to professional behaviour is therefore a central hypothesis that requires independent evaluation.

3. No independently verified controlled evaluation. The project provides assessment instruments and documents implementation, but the reviewed accessible sources do not establish a controlled study demonstrating improvements attributable to the board game-based intervention.

Without an appropriate comparison condition, changes in self-perceptions or observed behaviours cannot confidently be separated from maturation, social interaction, repeated practice or other influences.

4. Psychometric limitations of the self-report questionnaires. The initial and final forms include 18 statements covering several behaviours and interpersonal characteristics.

However, the reviewed documentation does not demonstrate that the instruments were validated as a multidimensional competence assessment.

Items addressing different constructs should not automatically be combined into a single score without evidence supporting that interpretation.

5. Challenges in behavioural observation. External observers constitute a methodological strength, but the quality of their evidence depends on clearly defined behavioural indicators, adequate training and consistency between observers.

Without inter-rater reliability assessment, differences in observations may reflect the observers’ interpretations rather than actual differences between participants.

6. Possible observer and facilitator effects. Participants may behave differently when they know they are being observed, while facilitators may influence discussions and decisions through explanations or encouragement.

These effects should be considered when interpreting the recorded behaviours.

7. Game familiarity as a confounding factor. Participants may perform better during repeated gameplay simply because they understand the rules and mechanics more effectively.

For example, a more successful negotiation strategy during the second Bohnanza workshop could reflect increased game knowledge rather than a general improvement in negotiation competence.

8. Uneven alignment between games and competencies. Each commercial game requires a combination of abilities. Pandemic involves communication as well as strategic thinking, while Mysterium requires cooperation as well as decision-making.

Consequently, assigning a single competence to each workshop simplifies the complex relationship between gameplay and behaviour.

9. Potential participation inequalities. Cooperative games can allow more experienced or confident participants to dominate decisions.

In Pandemic, for example, one participant may propose most actions while others simply follow instructions. In such circumstances, successful collective performance may coexist with limited opportunities for individual decision-making.

Facilitators should therefore distinguish group success from equitable competence practice.

10. Competitive behaviour and educational goals. Games such as Bohnanza reward individual success through negotiation and resource exchanges.

Although this creates opportunities to practise negotiation, it may also encourage opportunistic or highly competitive behaviours that are not always appropriate in professional relationships.

Debriefing should help participants distinguish effective game strategies from constructive workplace behaviours.

11. Dependence on facilitator competence. The transfer of learning relies heavily on educators helping participants interpret experiences and connect them with relevant situations outside gameplay.

Without sufficiently structured reflection, participants may simply experience an enjoyable recreational activity without identifying useful lessons.

12. Limited evidence about debriefing effectiveness. The project includes explicit reflection after each workshop, but the reviewed sources do not establish whether this component independently improved learning outcomes.

Comparing the same games with and without structured debriefing would provide valuable evidence about its contribution.

13. Heterogeneity of participants and contexts. The intervention was designed for young people with fewer opportunities across several countries.

Differences in age, education, social circumstances, previous gaming experience and language proficiency may influence engagement and performance.

These characteristics should be considered when evaluating outcomes or transferring the programme to new populations.

14. No verified employment outcomes. The project aims to increase employability, but the reviewed evidence does not establish that participants subsequently obtained employment more frequently, performed better in recruitment procedures or demonstrated improved professional performance.

Development of transversal competencies and actual labour-market outcomes should be treated as separate endpoints.

15. Commercial game access and licensing. The educational methodology is publicly documented, but the games themselves are proprietary recreational products.

Organisations must obtain legitimate access to the selected games, and their components cannot be redistributed merely because the project handbook is freely available.

16. Need for more complete reporting of outcome data. The project would have greater scientific value if final participant numbers, questionnaire results, observer data, effect sizes, statistical procedures and relevant limitations were published in a directly accessible and reproducible form.

Ludus Magnus assessment

The Gamification of Employment is especially relevant to the European Board Game-Based Learning Observatory because its educational methodology is based on adapting the use of existing recreational games rather than designing new games specifically for an educational project.

This represents a fundamental distinction within the field.

Many educational projects develop original games whose themes, questions and challenges are closely aligned with the intended learning objectives.

Although this approach can facilitate curricular alignment, the resulting games may have limited recreational value outside their educational context.

By contrast, The Gamification of Employment selects commercial games that already possess established rules, recreational objectives and meaningful player interactions.

The educational intervention is created primarily through the selection of the games, their organisation into a structured programme, the role of the facilitator and the reflection conducted after gameplay.

The project therefore illustrates how pedagogical value can emerge from the relationship between existing game mechanics and a deliberately designed educational methodology.

Bohnanza provides a particularly clear example.

Negotiation is not an external exercise added to the game. It is a recurring activity required to exchange cards, manage resources and pursue the player’s objectives.

The educational opportunity arises because participants must formulate proposals, assess competing interests, make offers and respond to other players within a meaningful recreational context.

Similarly, Pandemic requires players to coordinate decisions and manage a shared challenge.

Its cooperative mechanics provide opportunities to observe communication, leadership, participation and collective problem-solving.

However, the quality of these opportunities depends on how group decisions are distributed among participants.

Mysterium introduces another dimension through ambiguous visual communication.

The need to interpret clues and make decisions under uncertainty offers a potentially useful context for examining communication, reasoning and perspective-taking.

Rory’s Story Cubes is different again because its principal educational opportunities arise from creative verbal expression and the construction of stories.

Unlock! combines problem-solving, the interpretation of clues and time pressure within a cooperative tabletop escape-game experience.

The diversity of these games is a methodological strength because the programme does not assume that a single recreational mechanic is equally appropriate for every transversal competence.

Nevertheless, the project should be interpreted as a structured intervention involving multiple different games rather than as evidence that board games generally produce the same educational outcomes.

The inclusion of repeated Bohnanza and Rory’s Story Cubes workshops is also noteworthy.

Repeated gameplay creates opportunities to observe how participants respond when the rules are familiar and whether their strategies or confidence change over time.

However, any improvement must be interpreted carefully because game familiarity can produce better performance without necessarily indicating broader competence development.

One of the most valuable features of the project is its attention to debriefing.

Participants are not simply asked whether they enjoyed the activity. The diary encourages them to examine specific behaviours, decisions and emotions, and to consider how the experience might relate to their everyday lives.

This establishes an explicit connection between the recreational experience and the intended learning objectives.

For example, after Bohnanza, participants can reflect on whether they used emotional or rational arguments when negotiating.

After Pandemic, they can consider how they responded to responsibility, leadership and the decisions made by other players.

After Mysterium, they can examine the influence of uncertainty and other people’s opinions on their decisions.

These questions recognise that educational transfer is not necessarily an automatic consequence of gameplay.

The role of reflection is therefore central to the methodology and deserves particular attention in future research.

The use of external observers represents another important contribution.

Participants’ descriptions of their own abilities may differ from their observable behaviour during interactions.

Combining self-report and structured observation can provide a richer assessment of the learning experience, provided that the observation system is appropriately standardised.

From a scientific perspective, however, the availability of questionnaires and observational procedures should not be confused with validated evidence of improvement.

The project’s strongest documented result is the development and practical implementation of a transferable educational methodology.

Its more ambitious claim, that this methodology improves competencies relevant to employment, requires rigorous outcome evaluation.

A valuable future study would compare participants following the seven-workshop programme with a group completing equivalent non-game activities addressing the same competencies.

Validated measures of communication, teamwork, negotiation, problem-solving and decision-making could be administered before and after the intervention.

Independent behavioural assessments and a follow-up period would help determine whether any improvements persist beyond the gaming context.

Another promising research approach would be to compare the same games with and without structured debriefing.

This would help distinguish the effects of the recreational experience from the specific contribution of guided educational reflection.

It would also be useful to examine whether a multi-game programme produces broader competence development than repeated participation in a single carefully selected game.

The Gamification of Employment offers a suitable methodological starting point for these questions because its selection of games, workshop sequence and reflection procedures are explicitly documented.

Finally, the continued availability of its resources is an important strength.

Several years after completion, educators can still access the methodological documentation, assessment forms and workshop videos.

Because the method uses existing commercial games, its transferability does not depend on the survival of custom-made project components or a proprietary educational platform.

Transferable methodological lesson: Existing commercial board games can provide authentic opportunities to practise transversal competencies when their mechanics are deliberately matched to educational objectives and supported by structured observation, individual reflection and facilitated debriefing. However, the presence of relevant behaviours during gameplay should not be confused with demonstrated competence development, and transfer to professional contexts requires appropriate comparative and longitudinal evaluation.