Research in the Classroom: The Teaching of Economics and Gamification

This paper presents the preliminary results of a proposal to facilitate the understanding of concepts and the logic of economy in university students who are not enrolled in the academic program of economics. This proposal is based on the simulation game called Strategies and Markets in Economics (Estrategias y Mercados en Economia - EMERCO), which resulted from a research process in the classroom. The methodology has a qualitative approach and a descriptive type, with an exploratory scope. This study shows the functioning of the game, the selection of the team according to mentality type and brain dominance, in accordance with the Hellmann Brain Dominance Instrument. The game has novel elements in its structure by bringing the real functioning of a market to the classroom, achieving better results in regard to grades and in the assimilation of the contents in introductory classes and fundamentals of economics in higher education.