Serious Games as a Lean Construction Teaching Method - A Conceptual Framework
Résumé
The Information Technology (IT) revolution has transformed worldviews, spurring active teaching methods. In higher and technical education, serious games in virtual reality (VR) yield significant results. For this reason, this paper aims to show a conceptual and analytical tool for the design of serious games in virtual reality aimed at teaching the fundamentals of Lean Construction to undergraduate students in civil engineering. The implementation of Lean tools in civil construction promotes a lower time of production, decreases waste, increases the performance of workers and, obviously, reduces costs, increases the profit of business and improves the market positioning of companies. Based on a systematic literature review, whose results indicate that serious games (i) stimulate the practice of content, (ii) improve the ability to understand Lean principles, (iii) increase motivation and engagement, (iv) promote the development of interpersonal skills, (v) 70% of the games developed for teaching Lean do not use ITs and (vi) few studies refer to the perception, preparation and/or guidance of professors on the use of games. A didactic proposal was structured which, anchored in the scientific foundations of learning theories and in VR technology, is capable of filling the existing gap between the frontier of “knowing” and “knowing how to do”, providing the student a procedural knowledge and creating a collaborative, didactic and effective tool, connecting theory contents with professional practice. This work's significant contribution is a conceptual framework for teaching Lean Construction, enhancing teaching practices, and reversing deficiencies in the learning process through hybrid education.