Teaching operations research to undergraduate management students: The role of gamification

•A gamified version of a course for undergraduate management students is described.•Students' participation in classes increased.•Students' achievements were improved.•Recommendations on how to gamify a course are given.

Gamification has been successfully applied in some educational environments, however there is a lack of studies considering gamification applied to Management university courses. In this paper, the experience of applying gamification in an Operations Research/Management Science course taught to undergraduate management students will be described. The use of challenges, points, personalized feedback, badges and leaderboards was considered to implement the most important game mechanics and related dynamics. It was possible to observe an increase of students' participation in classes, an increase in the percentage of approved students and a better assessment of the course made by the students. Some recommendations on how to implement an Operations Research course for management students are also given.