“Embedding awareness of employability skills in the accounting degree through CIMA Business Game - an empirical study”

Higher educations institutions have increasingly sort ways to better prepare students for future employment and improve students graduate outcome metrics. Embedding employability into curriculum has proven to be challenge with increasing student numbers and ever-increasing competitive market for placements and graduate opportunities. This paper considers the importance of skills development among undergraduate accounting students via playing business games. Business games learning is an effective way to promote active, experiential, and fun learning. The research approach used was to gather perceptions of second year accounting students through a questionnaire using both open and closed ended questions. The questionnaire sought to seek what students gained from playing the business game. Findings reveal students enjoyed the game. The top four skills perceived as rated being highly used by students included teamwork, communication, listening and planning. As a result, the business game recommended as an effective and innovative learning aid that can positively contribute to students awareness of soft skills development. The implication of this research highlights that learning through games is an effective and enjoyable tool to develop students skills The study contribution shows that learning skills can take place using limited resources and within couple hours.