METACOGNITIVE LEARNING: SKILLS DEVELOPMENT THROUGH GAMIFICATION AT THE STELLENBOSCH LEARNING FACTORY AS A CASE STUDY

Abstract

South Africa has a high-cost, low-performance education system, which ultimately leads to unemployment and a skill shortage in the country. In order to bridge the skill shortage gap at a tertiary level, the Stellenbosch Learning Factory (SLF) was established. Learning factories involve experiential learning in a production environment through ‘learning by doing’. Gamification, one of the teaching methods used in the SLF, is investigated as a possible answer to South Africa’s educational problems. Learning factories can be used to train employees: the knowledge transfer resulting from real production conditions is favoured because process improvements can be implemented or practised without any real production downtime. The aim of this study was to determine the learning contribution of the games implemented at the SLF. This was accomplished by developing a three-dimensional matrix that employs a revised version of Bloom’s taxonomy to measure the learning success of the educational games at the SLF.

Keywords

• experiential learning
• teaching methods
• stellenbosch learning factory
• south africa’s educational problems
• education system
• unemployment and a skill shortage