Assessment of engineering student learning from structured computer game play

To create a culture for change in industry, students must begin to understand how to assess the tradeoffs among economic, technical, and environmental factors if they are to become socially, as well as fiscally, responsible designers and leaders. Because of their unique learning style and technological expertise, the Millennial Generation brings significant learning and teaching challenges to the classroom. A computer game was developed to teach the principles of environmental management and technology to engineering students. Assessment of the game explores the extent to which students increase their understanding of complex tradeoffs among environmental, economic, and technological issues in the automobile industry through repeated play of a collaborative cross disciplinary computer game.