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The concept of intrinsic fantasy has been considered central to the aim of usefully applying the positive affect of computer games to learning. Games with intrinsic fantasy are defined as having "an integral and continuing relationship with the instructional content being presented", and are claimed as "more interesting and more educational" than e...
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Interactive multimedia simulations combined with computer game elements can be successfully applied as a new type of educational resources for teaching today's generations of students. This works describes one type of educational game, which we used in the course Computer Archi-tecture and Organization 1 for the teaching unit "Unary logical operati...
The use of computer games as common vehicles for education, as opposed to pure entertainment, has gained
immense popularity in recent years. In this paper, we investigate the appealing characteristics of
engaging computer games for children, and whether embedding these characteristics into an
educational tool enhances children’s learning. We presen...
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... Game items in the level communicate relevant information about chemical processes through the item's behaviour in the gameplay, which can be positive, negative, or neutral. Hence, through the interactive items, the learning content is integrated intrinsically into the game because the integration occurs on a visual and interactive level (Habgood et al., 2005a;Habgood et al., 2005b). ...
Making games is a common practice to learn game design or programming in higher education. However, here it is hypothesised that beyond game-related or programming skills, the process of making games represents a learning approach that can extend curriculum-based education in different subject areas. Drawing on that hypothesis, the learning activity proposed in this study challenges students to design games through which their expertise in chemical engineering is communicated. Learners practice how to deal with a challenge, which is particularly relevant to thinking critically and proposing innovative solutions in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) disciplines.
The aim of the present study is twofold. Firstly, the investigation is centred on the main pillars required to integrate a game creation event into the chemical engineering curriculum, i.e. learning approach, tools, and context. Secondly, this research explores the implications of students making games in an engineering course, mainly focused on cognitive, motivational, and social outcomes.
In pre-school education, infants learn by playing with toys. Among those toys, building blocks typically done out of wood are quite popular in kindergartens. These blocks are inspiring, visual elements to create and learn during the creation process. Infants observe those blocks to reflect on what can be created and how the blocks could be combined to attain the desired outcome. Similarly, this investigation proposes a visual game editor for young adults to learn from the game design process in higher education. In this design-based research, students take on the role of game designers as a student-centred approach in which students enjoy a high degree of autonomy during the learning experience. Learning occurs as students explore and experiment by themselves to create a game, instead of following instructions. The conceptual approach builds on ideas of Seymour Papert’s constructionism, which extends constructivist theories because, besides creating their own knowledge, students create a digital game level. Since creators feel the need to share their creations and interact with others, the learning experience can be improved.
To facilitate the study's investigation, a game level editor has been developed. The Game Editor for Learning (G.E.L.) is a custom-made editing tool for the present study, which has been inspired by 2D drag-and-drop platform game level editors. In addition to the pre-made game items to create levels, the G.E.L. includes a feature to upload 2D pictures, through which new game items can be skinned. With that feature, the editor allows non-game designers to integrate engineering-related content in their creations and, most importantly, to reflect on how the content should be integrated with the different game elements and mechanics, as part of the learning process.
An additional contribution to this investigation is offering an educational context that echoes cultural trends. More precisely, the specific learning experience, named CHEM Jam, is a collaborative event known as game jam in game studies. Game jams are hackathon-like events to create games in a relatively short period of time. Hackathons and game jam events can attract participants and engage them cognitively and socially around the creation process. However, it is argued that game jams, unlike other types of hackathons, are fundamentally a game to make games and, as such, have the added advantage to engage participants playfully. In the final part, the present study addresses the implications of conducting a CHEM Jam, which was aligned with an undergraduate process design course in Autumn 2021. During the intervention, chemical engineering students created game levels with the G.E.L. for learning.
Overall, this interdisciplinary investigation aims to contribute to the fields of game studies, educational science, and engineering education. Particularly educational practitioners in engineering disciplines may find in this book an inspirational source to integrate a learner-centred activity, with game making at its core, in their lectures or teaching.
... Design sessions with young partners have been studied through the prism of cooperative inquiry [12]. Those studies showed a positive impact on students' interest in the field and the understanding of the concept of game design [13], the construction of knowledge and raised the question of the transfer of acquired knowledge and skills in other contexts [14]. ...
Examining and identifying the way that designers approach game design could support the improvement of game design curricula. This paper explores how kids in the early childhood approach develop and apply game design strategies during participatory game design sessions. During a period of three months, eighteen kindergarten learners participated in game design sessions, creating their own games. The data analysis suggests that those learners applied different game design strategies than the ones they initially started using. The frequency and intensity of the use of those strategies also changed, showing patterns that indicate learners’ development in their use of game design strategies and add empirical evidence to the field of game design education. Additionally, the Game Design Strategies Analysis (GDSA) is presented, which elaborates on the different types of strategies encountered when designing games.
... Communication among cross-generational teams and management of feedback has been considered as an important aspect of the design process [12], [27]. Participation in game design education activities has been suggested to have a positive impact on students' understanding of game related concepts [28] and knowledge transfer [29]. ...
Recent technologic advances and the continuous increase of software and hardware integration in people’s daily lives has extended research interest for the field of human computer interaction. User involvement in the design of software, among which games consist a big part, has also been on researchers’ spotlight, even from the early childhood. The aim of the present study is to explore and identify the impact of adult feedback on early childhood students’ design of games. The results presented are part of an ongoing and larger study that took place for three months and involved a team of eighteen kindergarten students, participating in game design sessions for a period of three months. The game design sessions were proposed, based on participatory design techniques and consisted of cross-generational teams of students and one adult. This paper studies how adult feedback influenced students’ decisions and work while designing their games, offering empirical evidence on the field of participatory and game design for the work with children of this age.
... Game design has been celebrated as a context for meaningful learning. Prior research on digital game making suggests that making games motivates children, enhances their self-esteem, supports their storytelling and programming abilities [3, 4, 5, 6]. We view games as systems [7], and the process of designing a game as one of exploring and elaborating on the scope of that system. ...
Prototyping is critical for refining designs, but to advance to this stage requires openness to changing ideas. We examine two cases of 14-year old children constructing and playtesting physical prototypes of digital games: one group characterized as flexible in their ideas, and the other characterized as fixated. Field notes, audio recordings, and design artifacts show how one team’s flexibility allowed them to discover material constraints and affordances through prototyping; while the other’s fixation influenced his prototyping strategy and limited his learning from it. We explore how questions from facilitators helped both teams to elaborate and generate ideas. This study has implications for supporting children in game design.
... Bandura, 1989;Howard-Jones & Demetriou, 2009;Kim et al, 2009;Klopfer et al, 2009;Lemke, 2013;Li et al, 2014;Locke & Latham, 2002;Mandinach & Corno, 1985;Meier et al, 2014;Pillary et al, 1999;Pillay, 2002;Rotgans & Schmidt, 2011;Rowe et al, 2011;Rozendaal et al, 2009 Content engagement Engagement in which players establish positive value systems and get motivated in content processing and retaining 169/31.6 Adams & Clark, 2014; Barab et al, 2010;Dickey, 2006;Habgood & Ainsworth, 2011;Habgood et al, 2005aHabgood et al, , 2005bKafai, 1995;Ke, 2008;Koster, 2005;Malone & Lepper, 1987;Plass et al, 2012;Shaffer, 2006;Weiner, 1985;Wigfield & Eccles, 2002 Gameplay relevance Engagement that is relevant to play motives and preferences 59/11 Boyle et al, 2012;Chory & Goodboy, 2011;Kinzie & Joseph, 2008;Lazzaro, 2009;Locke & Latham, 2002Nije Bijvank et al, 2012;Witt et al, 2011;Yee, 2007 Congregation of the four facets An integrated and continuing process that advance from affective involvement, cognitive engagement, to content engagement, and a dynamic state that reflects the connection between players and their gaming environment 534 Appleton et al, 2008;Klem & Connell, 2004;Skinner et al, 1990 Note: n indicates the number of coded enactments of game-based engagement behaviors/reactions in the case study. % indicates the percentage of each category/theme. ...
... The literature on educational gaming recommends an intrinsic integration of content and gameplay to achieve an endogenous or intrinsic fantasy (Habgood, Ainsworth & Benford, 2005a, 2005bKafai, 1995;Ke, 2008;Malone & Lepper, 1987). According to the perspective of epistemic games (Shaffer, 2006), a learning game should put players in touch with what is fundamentally or intrinsically motivating about the subject content to motivate them to go deeper in cognitive engagement with the content. ...
The promise of using games for learning is that play- and learning-engagement would occur cohesively as a whole to compose a highly motivated learning experience. Yet the conceptualization of such an integrative process in the development of play-based learning engagement is lacking. In this analytical paper, we explored and conceptualized the nature and development of game-based learning engagement via an iterative, two-stage analytical process. The first stage was theory driven. The literatures on motives of play, game and cognitive engagement, and game-based learning were reviewed and analyzed. Theoretical discussions on how learning engagement is activated and sustained during gameplay were distilled. The second stage was data driven. An in situ, multiple-case study was conducted to further examine affective and cognitive facets of learning engagement in gaming. The finding suggested that game-based learning engagement is an integrated and continuing process that advances from affective engagement driven by optimal challenge, cognitive engagement situated in playfulness, to potentially game-action-based content engagement.
... And Fenelon states that promoting the teaching with games spirits away the boring, monotonic and theoretical form of teaching while making it become an entertaining and amusing process (Ergun, 1980). Furthermore, taking the games with the purpose of teaching makes it possible to have a productive lesson and gives the students the opportunity to engage actively and construct the knowledge by themselves in the teacing process (Hagbood, Ainsworth and Benford;). In today's world where the information technologies have considerably developed, games have been moved from streets to virtual platform and have become one of the entertainments of people, especially of the children of school-age. ...
Human being starts learning about life via games. Therefore games have always maintained their importance and have always been interesting since the beginning of the human life. Games are being moved from streets to virtual platforms today as information Technologies are considerably progressing. And because of that, computer games are one of the entertainments for people today, especially for the children of school age. Analysing the literature, we find the computer games to have many positive effects on children’s performance at school. In this research, the effect of the computer game developed for the 7th grade science lesson, on student’s selfefficacy toward science is studied. Quasi-experimental design is used as the quantitative research method. The study group consists of 444 7th grade students in total attending to 7 different schools chosen from 7 different regions in Turkey. In this context, while there has not been any interference to the students attending to one of the 7th grade classrooms chosen from each school, the other students are provided with the computer game which is developed in the context of the application as an additional exercise. Seven experimental groups and seven control groups were chosen from each region in total one of which is the control group and the other is experimental group. “Science Self- Efficacy Scale” was drawn on as the data collection tool. The scale was applied two times in total, the first of which was before the application and the second after the application. As the result of the study, the developed computer game is determined to be an effective material in increasing the students’ self-efficacy toward Science. In addition, It is concluded that there are regional differences regarding the students’ self efficacy.
... This thesis examines the engaging, or motivational elements, that appear embedded in games. Research on the motivational power of games is steadily gaining interest (Felicia, 2011;Habgood, Ainsworth, & Benford, 2005). Most notable is the research within Self-Determination Theory (Ryan, Rigby, & Przybylski, 2006). ...
... Many studies examined game features that induce motivations amongst players (Csikszentmihalyi, 2002;Dickey, 2005;Garris et al., 2002;Habgood et al., 2005;Rigby & Ryan, 2011;Yee, 2006), and these reaffirm the belief that games can be highly engaging and motivate players to invest time and effort into playing the game. This thesis focuses mainly on understanding players' willingness to engage and less on the intensity of effort put into the engagements. ...
... If they satisfy these desires, the game appears rather engaging. Habgood et al. (2005) studied Malone's claim that fantasy is an intrinsically motivating feature. Habgood compared two games with one another. ...
This thesis reviews and utilizes concepts from cognitive psychology, developmental psychology and game design to bring forth a number of design principles for educational games that may improve students’ motivation to learn.
The main contribution of this thesis is a novel approach to serious game design, namely envisioning play and learning as a restructuring practice.
This change of perspective, from a formal game design approach (focused on rules and regulations) towards a more activity centered approach (focused on process and style), may help designers to leverage the motivational potential of games, in order to make education more engaging to students.
The main research question of this thesis is:
How to design autonomy-supportive learning games and how can these games improve students’ motivation to learn?
After the introduction, section 2 describes developments in education. Whereas, ‘traditional’ education focused on the transfer of content and the training of rather specific skills, social constructivist thought in Dutch education brought forward a focus on meta-cognitive skills, such as problem-solving, empathic understanding and entrepreneurship. As a result, Dutch educational system attempts to make students increasingly responsible for their own learning process. One way of doing this is by creating autonomy-supportive learning environments. In these, students have the opportunity to explore, experiment and struggle with the learning content. This manner of learning appears rather playful. Therefore this section concludes that autonomy- supportive learning may proof a valuable approach for serious game designers.
Section 3 stresses the correspondence between autonomy-supportive learning and gameplay. It shows how games have become increasingly autonomy-supportive. For example, players can find multiple solutions to a problem, they can play in accordance to their favored playing styles, and players are increasingly able to self-express themselves through social negotiations with others. Additionally, section 3 introduces the term: restructuring. Restructuring suggests the rearrangement and manipulation of existing structures to create something new. It is suggests that play can be characterized as a restructuring practice, and that this may help designers to integrate the learning into the gameplay.
Section 4 suggests that both education and the game industry present their audiences with autonomy-supportive environments. In addition, it suggests that learning and playing can be characterized as a restructuring practice. For example, learners rearrange, manipulate and change existing knowledge actors and structures to construct new knowledge. In comparison, players rearrange, manipulate and change exiting objects, rules, goals and experiences to create something new too.
Play and learning are both considered restructuring practice though social negotiations in a socio-cultural network of human and inhuman actors. Serious game designers can search for the restructureable elements in the learning content and transform them into playful activities. In short, designers could determine what can be changed without changing the learning content and translate this to game mechanics and dynamics. Searching for restructureable elements is considered the main design guideline to integrate the learning into the gameplay.
Section 5 suggests ten designs steps to integrate the learning into the gameplay. Consecutively, Section 6 illustrates the ten steps of embedding the learning content in the gameplay with the development of Combinatorics (a game about permutations), followed by Section 7, which combines all insights from development psychology and game design in the Applied Game Design Model. This model describes the ten steps of ‘getting the learning into the game’.
The Applied Game Design Model describes the initial concept design of an educational game. Section 8 contributes to this design with various ways to leverage the motivational potential of games. The section starts with explaining the reasons to use Self-Determination Theory as theoretical framework for motivation and consequently suggests various design decisions to satisfy needs for competence, autonomy and relatedness. These design tools are illustrated with the further development of Combinatorics in section 9.
Section 10 examined the motivational impact of Combinatorics. It describes a comparative study between the experienced regulatory style that was reported by players of an autonomy-supportive version and a restrictive (Drill & Practice) version of Combinatorics. Findings suggest that autonomy-supportive games can positively influence motivation towards learning. However, the restrictive version may positively influence motivation to learn as well. It becomes clear that different design decisions lead to different changes in motivation. Future research could study these differences in more detail and over a longer period of time, trying to get a better understanding of restructuring practices and their impact on motivation.
Section 11 discusses the main contributions and positioning of this thesis, followed by the final conclusions in section 12, which revisits the concepts of cognitive psychology, developmental psychology, the Applied Game Design Model and the validation study to suggest a number of design principles for educational games that my improve students’ motivation to learn.
... When the element of fantasy helps the pupils to make meaningful choices beyond what is deemed within their capacity, engagement might happen (Habgood, Ainsworth, & Benford, 2005b;Salen & Zimmerman, 2004). When we fantasize, we exercise our imagination and that empowers us to become creative and critical, elements that are fundamental to the process of learning (Paintner, 2007). ...
A Hypercontextualized Game (HCG) is a locally designed game that supports its players in gathering context-specific information and in-depth understanding and knowledge regarding the context of a site. LIEKSAMYST, an exciting mobile application, with which visitors can play various games based on stories, was originally developed for the open-air section of the Pielinen Museum and is an example of such a hypercontextualized game. Each individual game (which together make up LIEKSAMYST) was developed in, for and with the co-operation of the Pielinen Museum. In its design, LIEKSAMYST purposefully attempts to connect users to the local history and thus promote affective engagement. With the co-operation of both a local school (Lieksan Keskuskoulu) and the museum authorities, we set out to discover how LIEKSAMYST guides the informal learning experience of Grade 7 pupils. We gathered information from 101 pupils on-site (through questionnaires) and used this data, as well as the pupils' academic grades, to elucidate our study by investigating the relationship between engagement and motivation. The data were analyzed using a quantitative method guided by a qualitative interpretational approach and we found a significant correlation between (a) fantasy and (b) affective and cognitive engagement. The study highlighted the importance of evoking and harnessing both affective and cognitive engagement, through the fundamental element of fantasy, in the game narrative.
... Nos expérimentations empiriques semblent montrer que la réalisation de Serious Games par les apprenants permet d'embrasser des enseignements dépassant le seul cadre des jeux vidéo. Ce sentiment est conforté par les conclusions d'autres expérimentations, conduites auprès d'élèves en primaire et secondaire, sur le recours à la création de Serious Games en classe comme technique pédagogique [6][7][8][9][10]. De notre côté, nous rapprochons cette technique de celles développées par Freinet, en particulier de « l'imprimerie à l'école » [11]. ...
Dans le cadre de cours d’initiation à la création de jeux vidéo destinés à des élèves ingénieurs, nous nous sommes écartés du seul divertissement pour nous orienter vers la réalisation de Newsgames (Serious Games dédiés à l’actualité). Nos cours semblent dorénavant permettre de développer l’esprit critique des étudiants en plus de l’apprentissage d’une méthodologie de création de jeu vidéo. Par exemple, certains étudiants ont réalisé séparément des jeux traitant d’une même actualité. Cet exercice leur a permis de confronter leurs points de vue respectifs sur un même sujet d’actualité, et donc de s’engager sur des discussions de fond à son propos. Dans cet article, nous présentons tout d’abord le contexte de cette expérimentation, avant d’analyser les productions des étudiants et le travail de réflexion qu’elles ont nécessité de leur part.
... • Fantasy (or ''. . . the integral and continuing relationship with the instructional content being presented'' [237]. ...
