Applying a Gamification Technique for Learning Sustainable Finance

The objective is for our students to know and understand the different forms of financing available for the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) approved by the United Nations, as well as their institutional framework, among other basic concepts. Despite the relevance of this topic, it is rarely included in the syllabus of Finance-related subjects in official degrees, mainly due to time constraints. However, we think it is essential for students to understand these concepts during their educational stage. Therefore, we developed an Escape Room game to facilitate fun and engaging learning of Sustainable Finance without adding additional workload for them. The game was implemented in five different groups: four undergraduate groups from two public universities in Madrid, Complutense University of Madrid (UCM) and Rey Juan Carlos University (URJC), and one high school group from IES Gerardo Diego. A quasi-experimental methodology with a pre- and post-quiz was applied to evaluate the improvement in the learning of the participating students. The results show a progress in the students’ knowledge after playing the game. Specifically, this improvement is higher than two points (out of ten) in all subjects/groups considered (reaching almost 3.5 points in some of them) with the exception of high school students, who show an average increase slightly less than 1.5 points, results in line with other findings shown by several studies in this field of research. In addittion, the results of the satisfaction surveys reveal that students are very satisfied with the experience and the learning achieved through this gamification technique.