**7.1 Students' feedback on the role-playing learning activity**

At the end of each session in the trial, the students were asked to give their opinion on the activity through a short comment. The collection of this information was carried out through menti.com. In total, 58 comments from students were collected. In sum, 20 different themes were identified in the responses through an inductive process. **Figure 7** shows the percentage of responses found involving each of the themes. The dominant themes were that the activity was fun (39.7%), interesting (12.1%), and that it allowed the students to share different points of view (32.8%) through discussions (13.8%) and debate (6.9%). In some cases, the students declared having engaged in heated debates and arguments with their peers (6.9%). Many highlighted the challenge of reaching a consensus (12.1%), given the different views that the adoption of the different roles led to. On the other hand, some of the students stated that the activity required them to think empathically (8.6%) with regard to the implications of their decisions in the lives of people affected by the pandemic, as well as the decisions made by other roles.

### **8. Conclusions**

In this chapter we presented EthicApp-RP, a social platform aimed at fostering ethical reasoning, discussion and argumentation in higher education students, through a role-playing learning activity based on the jigsaw pattern. The results of the pilot activity show that the instructional design can be well enacted with business students in a synchronous online setting, that technical (see section 6.1)

and pedagogical usability (see section 6.2) are positively regarded by the students, and the pedagogical goals of the activity were effectively fulfilled. The latter included eliciting students' reflection, argumentation, ethical discernments and moral reasoning through role-playing, while providing all students with equal opportunities for participation.

Sankey network analysis revealed that the students made decisions throughout the activity phases in ways in which their effective role personification was achieved, while they were doing discernment, reflection and argumentation processes by online chat messages. In addition, the justifications with which the students ranked the actions hierarchically, shows that 40% of the cohort was able to give an elaborate argument for their decisions, and 9% provided justifications of an outstanding level, which is a positive result considering the cohort was composed of business freshmen. The students considered the activity to be fun, interesting and that it fostered discussion and sharing of different points of view.

Compared to other role-playing learning activities, EthicApp-RP requires minimal logistical preparation, as the tool transparently guides students through the process, facilitating information sharing and synchronous communication among them. Furthermore, the teacher can follow the development of the activity using a progress dashboard in real time that EthicApp-RP has as a functionality. Requirements for case specification remain similar to other role-playing learning activities reported in the literature. These include the elaboration of a case based on a real or fictious situation comprising one or more ethical dilemmas, and the definition of several decision-making roles with different interests and priorities. EthicApp-RP's requirements and features make it applicable to a wide variety of learning domains and contexts in higher education, including disciplines in both science and the humanities.
