Gamified City for 6th Graders: The Effect of Gameful Experience on Students' 21st Century Readiness in Finland

This study examines whether Yrityskylä, a one-day gamified simulated city in which Finnish sixth graders role-play employment, consumption, and civic voting, is associated with growth in 21st century readiness. Drawing on the P21 framework, the authors argue that roleplay-based gamification can make abstract social and personal competencies, which traditional teacher-centered instruction struggles to convey, more tangible. The program reaches more than 80 percent of Finnish sixth graders annually across ten facilities, and the research focuses on 253 participating students who completed pre- and post-visit self-report surveys.

The central finding is that gameful experience was significantly and positively associated with change in self-reported 21st century readiness across all six dimensions examined (p < .001). Effect sizes were moderate for social and cross-cultural skills, leadership and responsibility, and flexibility and adaptability, and small for initiative and self-direction, communication and collaboration, and productivity and accountability. These results are drawn from a single-group pre/post design, so the authors caution that causality cannot be fully established. Possible pandemic-related confounds and a likely novelty effect from the one-day intervention also complicate interpretation.

The authors conclude that Yrityskylä may support the acquisition of 21st century skills and attitude change within formal curriculum, but they characterize the evidence as a meaningful signal from a short intervention rather than a robust causal demonstration. Supporting materials validate the GAMEFULQUEST measurement instrument through factor loadings, Cronbach's alpha, composite reliability, and average variance extracted, providing a foundation for future work. Follow-up research with control groups, longitudinal measurement, and multiple program exposures would be needed to determine whether these gains persist and transfer beyond the immediate experience.