Creating a Modified Monopoly Game for Promoting Students' Higher-Order Thinking Skills and Knowledge Retention

This study modifies a popular business simulation game, Monopoly, to assess its effectiveness as a learning and teaching tool for helping high school accounting students acquire and apply foundational accounting concepts. The study compares an accounting-focused, Modified Monopoly simulation game with two other instructional methods. Using a quasi-experimental approach that involves three learning groups with random assignment of treatments based on school/class, a sample of 144 accounting students was obtained. This study found students using Modified Monopoly showed significantly greater improvement between their pre- and post-test scores than students in Computer-assisted instruction (CAI), but significantly less improvement than a paper-based extended accounting problem (EAP). However, students using Modified Monopoly, similar to CAI students, did not suffer the same significant decay in knowledge as students in EAP. These results offer evidence for the significant and more enduring learning benefits that Modified Monopoly can produce in students' higher-order thinking skills.