Game-Based Learning in Requirements Engineering: An Overview

The use of games in the teaching and learning process is not new. It is said to be able to improve students understanding when the subject matters are taught in a less formal but more meaningful way. With the advances of technologies, educational games have evolved into digital games too. They have been introduced into many areas of study such as medicine and engineering. Software engineering is not spared. Since the last few decades, gamification through the use of digital and non-digital games are seen applied in the teaching of various topics of software engineering such as requirements engineering, design and testing. In this paper, a review is specifically made on the games that have been introduced to teach requirements engineering (RE) to the students. Particularly, the types, the learning objectives and the possible classification of the games are presented and discussed. The aim of the review is to identify the current state of RE games with respect to the above. Keyword searching was used to identify the relevant literature to be included in the review. Results showed that the existing RE games can be broadly divided into digital and non-digital games with role playing prevalently used as the game mechanics. Details on the learning objectives of the games and the evaluation performed on the games are also collected and analysed.