Improving undergraduate soft skills using m-learning and serious games

Abstract

Soft skills such as effective communication are becoming increasingly important for engineering graduates. Employers prize excellent written and oral abilities and literacy proficiency. High levels of academic literacy can significantly improve students' success in their university study. Traditional approaches to literacy improvement can limit student engagement. However, mobile learning and the use of smart phone apps present new opportunities to support literacy education. This paper describes current work exploring the use of apps, as serious games, to improve literacy in undergraduate students and outlines initial results from a cross-discipline evaluation of an m-learning literacy app.