Social Seducement: Empowering Social Economy Entrepreneurship. The Training Approach

Abstract

Long-term unemployment is a persistent problem in Europe, following the economic crisis suffered in 2008. This situation reveals self-employment as a good option for becoming re-involved in the working life. In this context, this paper presents a gamified educational platform to empower social economy entrepreneurship skills in long-term unemployed people. In particular, we present the training approach underpinning the motivational process supported by gamification, which has been developed using the ADDIE model. The learning path is developed according to a story that guides the work throughout the training process. It is based on the premises of alignment with reality, instruction from didactic material and real-life stories, in-game practice, work in groups and assistance from a facilitator. This approach covers the competence needs identified in a previous study and includes gamification techniques to improve motivation and engagement. Therefore, the training program comprises: (1) a set of materials and real social economy enterprise experiences, which are the basis for learning and getting inspiration; (2) activities to develop a business plan based on concepts learned from the learning materials and from real-life stories, as well as the help of a facilitator who walks with trainees during the process; (3) a set of individual and group, mandatory and optional assessment activities to evaluate the learning achieved; and (4) a three-views scoring system that shows learning progress for individuals and groups, and gives players the opportunity to exchange gamification points for benefits in the game. The results presented in this paper are based on a sample of two pilots run in Italy and Spain and involving five facilitators working with around 60 learners. About 60% of participants indicated their intention to apply knowledge obtained in a real-life entrepreneurship initiative.