“If I played this game again, I would be unethical”: Challenges players face when playing games for ethics literacy

Abstract

Gamification of education or game-based learning has been considered as a means of enhancing ethical literacy in educational practices. However, the relationship between games and ethics has also led to polarized views: on the one hand, games can enhance learning outcomes by providing engaging and simulating experiences; on the other hand, certain game mechanics and features may easily reinforce unethical intention and behavior, which seem to contradict the ultimate goals of ethics education. This presents a challenge for game design in balancing playability and ethics-related serious purpose. Therefore, it is important to understand how learners, who are also players, perceive the value of using games for learning ethics, especially whether and what kinds of issues and hurdles they encounter and identify. To deepen our understanding of challenges in game-based ethics education from learners’ perspective, we conducted a four-day workshop study in which 32 participants played and evaluated different games designed to teach business ethics. Following each game session, participants were invited to take part in interviews. Through the thematic analysis, we identified 21 challenges categorized across three phases of the self-regulated learning process. These challenges were further discussed in detail, and three dilemmas were extracted, offering insights into key considerations on designing and implementing gamification to enhance ethics literacy.