Abstract

The aim of this study is to present a board game design which are based on the hotel management concepts, and assess its effectiveness towards soft skills development for higher education. Soft skills play a major role during social interaction in the society as well as maintaining a successful career. 5-ST☆R: The Hotel Management Game was proposed as a platform to develop soft skills among students in higher learning as to implement game-based learning and simulation-based learning for post-learning activity. A quasi-experimental research design was used as to measure the effectiveness of the board game in the development of soft skills. A sample of 64 students were being selected and assigned into two groups, one of which used the board game (Experimental, n = 32), while the other are the non-gaming (Control, n = 32). A questionnaire was used in the pre-test and post-test phase. During the intervention session, students were being observed and their scores and objectives achieved for each game session were recorded. Data analysis from the study support that the use of board game was effective in the development of the respondents’ soft skills. The results from the study recommend that within the higher learning environment, the use of board game can be exploited as an effective post-learning activity as the students also may be able to discover the knowledge on its own in a non-threatening environment.

Key words: Board game, game-based learning, simulation-based learning, soft skills development