Games and Learning Alliance

This research is a first attempt to investigate the relationship between students’ Disposition toward Critical Thinking (DCT) and their learning while engaging in the uManager serious game aimed at fostering the entrepreneurial mindset. Specifically, we will try to seek if the students’ DCT influences their game-playing. To this aim, the uManager game was renewed to directly include game mechanics able to support the processes that are at the base of critical thinking like clarifying meaning, analyzing arguments, evaluating evidence. This paper shows the results of a trial conducted with 92 students of the 12th grade.

A learning path supporting the development of Computational Thinking skills in students of the last years of Primary School was defined and tested in a case study involving a grade 5 class and their teacher for the whole school year. The project aimed at involving all the students regardless of their personal interest, as a standard school activity. The case study proved to be successful with respect to students’ interest and their ability to reach the main project’s objectives. Their skills increased along the project and students demonstrated to be on the right path to develop a complete and autonomous approach to Computational Thinking. Nevertheless, a longer time span would be needed to for students to master deeply the new concepts and tools. Sometimes abstraction can be difficult and concrete activities are needed to introduce new ideas. Furthermore, students showed little autonomy and a limited use of the social aspects of the chosen programming environment. Devoting a longer time to the learning path would help fostering these skills. Finally, a close integration of the learning path with the school curriculum is envisaged.

Games have long been considered as a means to support effective learning, motivate learners and accelerate their learning. Several successful studies using game-based learning are reported in the literature. However, there appears to be a research gap on systematically evaluating accelerated learning in game environments. The main research question we address in this paper is how can we evaluate accelerated learning in game-based learning environments? The main contribution of this paper will be a framework for evaluating accelerated learning in games (ALF). We will illustrate the use of this framework by describing studies conducted in the Norwegian industrial project ALTT (Accelerate Learning Through Technology), aimed at capacity building in the aluminium industry, where we have co-designed a game for accelerating learning about the electrolysis process for extracting aluminium and heat balance in the aluminium production cells.

Musicality is the concept that refers to a person’s ability to perceive and reproduce music. Due to its complexity, it can be best defined by different aspects of music like pitch, harmony, etc. Scientists believe that musicality is not an inherent trait possessed only by musicians but something anyone can nurture and train in themselves. In this paper we present a new game, named Musicality, that aims at measuring and improving the musicality of any person with some interest in music. Our application offers users a fun, quick, interactive way to accomplish this goal at their own pace. Specifically, our game focuses on three of the most basic aspects of musicality: instrument recognition, tempo and tone. For each aspect we created different mini-games in order to make training a varied and attractive activity.

Interactive Narratives (INs), usually within games, have the possibility to motivate users to change their attitude or behavior. The application of INs in healthcare has already shown promising results as opposed to traditional narratives. Yet, very little is known about the effect of each specific aspect of an IN or how to create an effective IN. Using the recent IN-model of Green and Jenkins, this paper explores the applicability of its constructs and exemplifies it through a case study. In doing so, this paper looks at the challenges one runs into when designing an IN. Subsequently it presents the way in which these problems were tackled for the case study. This results in new ways to look at the practical implications of Green and Jenkin’s model, thus helping future IN designers and researchers to identify and avoid design pitfalls early. As gaps in the literature are discovered throughout the paper, possible future research topics are discussed.

This working paper investigates the question of changing people mobility towards more sustainable habits involving them in an engaging gameplay. The work is performed within MUV H2020 research and innovation action. The game design, definition and features have been co-created through the involvement of different citizens and stakeholders in six European neighbourhoods. The paper discusses the game design as resulting from co-creation and co-design experiences with each neighbourhood communities involved in initial phases. The paper argues that the local co-design activities have influenced the game definition, together with the community engagement approach. The MUV gameplay approach results thus a demand-side measure able to encouraging people to sustainable mobility modes in the awareness of their potential role as agents of urban livability. The data collected by the players will be used to support a citizen-centric approach to facilitate equity and mobility justice in urban policies.

Behavior change is a topic that is of great interest to many people. People can use apps to exercise more, eat healthier, or learn a new skill, but and digital interventions and games are also used by policy makers and companies to create a safe environment for the general public or to increase sales. Given this interest in behavior change, it is not surprising that this topic has seen a lot of interest from the scientific community. This has resulted in a wide range of theories and techniques to bring about behavior change. However, maintaining behavior change is rarely addressed, and as a result poorly understood. In this paper, we take a first step in the design of digital interventions for long-term behavior change by placing a range of behavior change techniques on a long-term behavior change timeline.

Commuters who travel by train often feel annoyed due to misunderstanding the causes of delays in train traffic. They oftentimes are unaware of the necessity of performing maintenance to stations, tracks, and trains. MainTrain is a serious game developed to teach commuters about rail-maintenance while simulating the difficulty of keeping passengers happy. It is a fast-paced strategy game with a top-down view in which a player can perform maintenance actions on stations, tracks, and trains. By using commuter happiness as a base metric, MainTrain attempts to elicit empathy from players dissatisfied with scheduled maintenance so that they gain a better appreciation of the need for scheduled maintenance. This is coupled with the need to schedule maintenance for several components of a rail network, encumbering a player while teaching them about different aspects of rail maintenance. To examine the effectiveness of the game, the results of a user study are presented.

Computational thinking (CT) is a term widely used to describe algorithmic thinking and logic reasoning concepts and processes often related to computer programming. As such, CT as a cognitive ability builds on concepts and processes that derive from computer programming, but are applicable to wider real-life problems and STEM domains. CT has recently been argued to be a fundamental skill for 21st century education and an early academic success indicator that should be introduced and trained already in primary school education. Accordingly, we developed three life-size board games – Crabs & Turtles: A Series of Computational Adventures – that aim at providing an unplugged, gamified and low-threshold introduction to CT by presenting basic coding concepts and computational thinking processes to 8 to 9-year-old primary school children. For the design and development of these educational board games we followed a rapid prototyping approach. In the current study, we report results of an empirical evaluation of game experience of our educational board games with students of the target age group. In particular, we conducted quantitative analyses of player experience of primary school student participants. Results indicate overall positive game experience for all three board games. Future studies are planned to further evaluate learning outcomes in educational interventions with children.

The practice of self-reflection for some students is often thought of as tedious and more often than not, even though the benefits of self-reflection have long been documented, little time is given (to the fault of both students and educators) to building upon the necessary skills required for aiding this process. Dungeons and Dragons (D&D), a table-top roleplaying games system developed by Gygax and Arneson, utilises a host of game mechanics such as, but not limited to: character creation, customisation, skills development, leveling over time, story-telling and a game-masters feedback. Many of the game mechanics in D&D, require the player to self-reflect on behalf of their character and continually assess how they wish their character to develop for future game sessions. Coupled with interactive feedback (visual/written/auditory/narrative-development) that is provided throughout each game session from a game master who leads the players through a pre-developed story, the basis of the mechanics provides some similarities to a facilitator leading learners through an assignment. In this paper, the authors present a playful example of how roleplaying games can be used to facilitate student self-reflection. A discussion of the design, method and mid-pilot feedback of n = 11 students undertaking the Dungeons & Dragons Self-Reflection Tool is presented alongside next stage pilot trials and considerations of future work.

People are frequently confronted with scams; swindlers trying to gain your trust to get hold of your personal information, money or belongings. Elderly people are especially vulnerable to these tricks, that typically occur at the front door, street or on the phone. We have developed a virtual training environment to teach people how to handle these situations and learn them to increase their verbal resilience. The training is implemented as a tablet application and consists of six scenarios that are likely to occur in daily life. Participants are placed in a dialogue with a virtual character and may interact by choosing an answer from a fixed multiple-choice menu or by speaking the answer aloud. A speech recognition module is able to detect the level of assertiveness and provides immediate feedback to the user’s performance. In this paper, we present the implementation of the virtual training application. To evaluate the prototype a focus group was organized, consisting of potential end users. The outcomes were mainly positive and the provided feedback will be incorporated into the final version.

In the current paper we present the design process of an intrinsically integrated educational game on Newtonian mechanics. The design is based on a guiding frame in line with the intrinsic integration theory, which states that in a game, learning goal and game goal should be aligned. This also results in an alignment between a pedagogical approach and game mechanics. Our findings suggest three guidelines within this guiding frame. First, the guiding frame works in a specific order starting with forming a learning goal and ending with the game goal. Also, to optimize the alignment between the learning goal and the game goal, it should only be possible for players to reach the game goal when the desired learning goal is reached. Finally, during the iterations of the design process the focus is on aligning the pedagogical approach with the game mechanics. This proved to be an essential but difficult step.

In recent times, numerous researchers and educators have been exploring playful learning with digital games in both formal and informal contexts. This study explores the point of view of players on the relationship between digital games and learning, based on a set of semi-structured interviews and two workshops involving relevant stakeholder groups (players, teachers, trainee teachers, and parents). Analysis of the gathered qualitative and quantitative data reveals that both players and educators agree that games have educational potential, but the assumption of blanket learner enthusiasm for game based learning is not always accurate. In particular, players have some resistance towards serious games, which are seen as less appealing than “real” videogames. In addition, some players and some teachers feel that the use of games in formal learning contexts contradicts the fundamental freedom intrinsic to the act of playing. Players are aware of the risks video-gaming presents, but they do not appear to be fully aware of its learning potential, as most mention lower order skills (memory, attention, reaction time) rather than academic knowledge and soft skills. Some mention game potential for the development of their social, cultural and gender identity, with consequential positive effects on their ethical beliefs. Players also point out the importance of videogame education for teachers, parents and for themselves. Lastly, they feel the need for innovation in games that, through innovative game mechanics and narratives, enhances the cultural and artistic component of games.

This paper elaborates on the development of a serious game in the domain of remote sensing. It describes the challenges of defining the target group and keeping them motivated over several weeks in order to achieve specific learning objectives. Furthermore, the paper states the integration of the game into the pedagogical concept. The paper illustrates in detail how the balance was found between realistic learning objectives and engaging gameplay following the ideas of Immersive Didactics and Digital Game-Based learning. It depicts on how to find close correlation between learning objectives and game objectives while keeping engagement and immersion. In addition, the paper outlines the support for educators and trainers via the implemented editors. Finally, the paper will report about the current evaluation of the game’s learning outcome and user experience.

This paper reports results from an ongoing project that aims to develop a digital game for introducing fractions to young children. In the current study, third-graders played the Number Trace Fractions prototype in which they estimated fraction locations and compared fraction magnitudes on a number line. The intervention consisted of five 30 min playing sessions. Conceptual fraction knowledge was assessed with a paper based pre- and posttest. Additionally, after the intervention students’ fraction comparison strategies were explored with game-based comparison tasks including self-explanation prompts. The results support previous findings indicating that game-based interventions emphasizing fraction magnitudes improve students’ performance in conceptual fraction tasks. Nevertheless, the results revealed that in spite of clear improvement many students tended to use false fraction magnitude comparison strategies after the intervention. It seems that the game mechanics and the feedback that the game provided did not support conceptual change processes of students with low prior knowledge well enough and common fraction misconceptions still existed. Based on these findings we further developed the game and extended it with physical manipulatives. The aim of this extension is to help students to overcome misconceptions about fraction magnitude by physically interacting with manipulatives.

The present paper illustrates that the game-based implementation of a learning task - here to train basic math skills - entails benefits with strings attached. We developed a game for learning math with its core element based on the number line estimation task. In this task, participants have to indicate the position of a target number on a number-line, which is thought to train basic numerical skills. Participants completed both the game on a mobile device and a conventional paper-pencil version of the task. They indicated to have significantly more fun using the game-based environment. However, they also made considerably higher estimation errors in the game compared to the paper-pencil version. In this case, more fun in a math-learning task was ultimately bought at the expense of lower reliability, namely lowered accuracy of estimations in the learning game. This fun-accuracy trade-off between adding elements for enjoyment and clarity of content is discussed together with the consequences for game-design.

Video games have been known to increase the levels of player’s motivation. This initiated the emergence of serious games and gamification to exploit game elements and mechanics for increasing the motivation in non-game contexts. The research reported in this paper used psychological theories of Self-Determination Theory (SDT) and Self-Efficacy Theory (SET) to design three versions of a game. The first version was based on SDT, the second on SET and the third version was based on a combination of these two theories. The objective is to investigate the impact of each game design on the user motivation and performance. An experiment of playing the games designed with these features was conducted. Surprisingly, the results on the objective evaluation revealed that there is no significant difference among the groups in terms of engagement and performance. Furthermore, these findings were confirmed by the results on the subjective evaluation of player’s perceived motivation, which showed no significant difference between the three experimental conditions.

The issue of national and European identity is driving many of the issues that are currently of concern to European citizens. The Erasmus+ funded RU EU? project aims to develop an innovative online game, the RU EU? game, that will help students across Europe to develop a better understanding of their own National and European identity and values, as well as those of others, and to challenge them about their attitudes and prejudices by tackling problem solving dilemmas relating to identity. It is hoped that the game will provide an engaging platform for young Europeans to confront some of the complex and confusing issues surrounding National and European identity at a time of change and increasing tension across Europe. This paper describes the early stages of the game design and focuses on characterizing the learning outcomes and game mechanics for the RU EU? game and bringing these together.

Auditory attention is fundamental also in serious games. This paper synthetizes the results of a recent statistical analysis of auditory attention of non-native learners and proposes indications for serious game design. We propose a 3-dimensional difficulty level model that can be applied both for designing game levels and adaptivity to keep a player in the flow. The model suggests using background noise level as a prime factor to increase the difficulty of the game, followed by the length of the stimulus and the semantic complexity of the message. We also propose the concept of a mini-game format specifically aimed at training auditory attention and performance. As a format, it could be easily customized in different context domains and implemented as a service or a game engine plug-in.

The game “simkult” is a serious game for health prevention in the workplace. The design process focused on three key aspects of serious games derived from the Input-Process-Outcome model of learning with games by Garris and Driskell. In order to introduce knowledge, skills and attitudes with regard to safety and health at the workplace we systematically developed (a) the instructional content, (b) the game characteristics and (c) the context of use, which defines how the game is used and how the debriefing can be realized. As a result, “simkult” is a multi-player simulation game for five to 20 persons which addresses work teams in small and middle sized companies. By putting each player in the position of a restaurant manager the complex interplay of important areas towards safety and health at work (e.g. work climate, leadership) are displayed. Two core aspects within the game are the non-player characters and critical incidents which represent quests for the players in the simulation. These were developed with regard to the target group’s needs in order to create an engaging and effective serious game.

The cyber security context requires to better understand how developers write (in)secure code and to assist them in their software developments. We have developed a secure coding experiment and serious game intervention. In this paper, we report on the design of a serious game to investigate developer-centred security. We used a combination of approaches to shape discussions and support the serious game co-creation.

Serious Games (SGs) are widely used in a variety of fields, because they have been shown to effectively facilitate learning in an engaging and entertaining manner. In recent years, there is discussion on how valid evidence of SGs efficiency can be increased, in order to further promote their use. Thus, numerous SG design and evaluation frameworks have been introduced, many of which have proved useful for SGs developing teams. Despite this, however, for novice designers, this vast array can be daunting. The aim of the present paper is to combine well-known frameworks and extract the conceptual factors that need to be considered when designing an SG. Having in mind that the proposed aspects are not in their essence independent, a classification of these aspects is presented, along with suggestions regarding their use and the dependencies among them. Although the various frameworks might have many common factors, there are some that highlight specific aspects of a particular factor. For instance, those frameworks that apart from the descriptive factors provide aspects regarding application, measurement, and assessment.

Educators have now introduced the so called escape-games into their teaching or training practices. During a limited time, a team of learners collaboratively solves puzzles related to educational content. For learners, the aim consists of “escaping” from a room. For educators, an escape-game contextualizes an educational content into a meaningful and inspiring experience based on game-based and collaborative learning. This paper deals with the implementation of what we call educational escape game with the focus on the process dedicated to decontextualize the knowledge after a game session. We want to get a better understanding of debriefing so that practice can improve. The paper is based on an empirical study carried out with teachers/trainers experienced in implementing educational escape games. The paper is organized as follow. We (1) provide with a brief review of literature on debriefing and we argue for the adoption of the term “institutionalization”, a concept enabling to take into consideration the transformation of knowledge after a game session. We (2) propose a definition for educational escape-game based on a literature review and the systematic analysis of 2 French databases of educational escape games and (3) we discuss the results of an empirical work aiming at understanding how educators carry out the debriefing session which follows the time dedicated to play. According to our theoretical framework, debriefing consists of a process aiming at the transformation of the subjective and situated knowledge developed during the game into objective and transferable knowledge. Interviews and questionnaires conducted with three teachers enable to describe this process in terms of time (chronogenesis), role played by participants (topogenesis) and the settings (objects and relationships between objects) in which this process takes place (mesogenesis). These findings offer the opportunity for new guidelines for the design of debriefing sessions.

This paper presents the results of a study, comparing a game versus a dashboard with respect to energy conservation in the household. In a pretest-posttest design, an empirical study tested whether change in attitude, knowledge, engagement and behaviour with respect to energy conservation in the household was different for participants playing Powersaver Game compared to a control condition where participants used an energy dashboard with the same content, but excluding game features. The aim of this game (developed using an iterative user-centered game design methodology) is to influence household energy consumption by means of electricity and gas usage in the long-term. The intervention time was at least 5 weeks and pre and post measures based on 21 days intervals. All energy conservation activities that the application provides (e.g. washing clothes on low temperatures) take place in the real world and feedback is based on real time energy consumption. This inverse gamification principle aims to optimize the transfer between the game world and the real world. Energy consumption significantly changed in the game condition compared to the control condition, and the difference between both conditions is more than 33% after the intervention. In the game condition, knowledge about energy conservation was significantly increased, although no significant differences in increase of attitude and engagement were found. We conclude that Powersaver Game is effective in transfer of energy conservation knowledge, which leads to energy saving behaviour on the long term. It cannot be concluded that playing the game leads to a greater change in attitude, however, attitude scores of the participants were high from the start.

An adaptive 3D serious game, QuaSim for imparting to learners the fundamental concepts of quantum cryptography and their applications in designing computer security protocols is described. QuaSim emulates an often used instructional model of practice exercises followed by timed-tests (practice-timed-test) in a serious game setting by automatically designing timed-tests guided by models learned from data about the performance of players in practice exercises. QuaSim also automatically selects next practice exercises based on player performance in previous exercises. The game was played by 150 students and the results are highly encouraging. They show that the model learned by the game is able to select next practice exercises to improve player performance in the timed tests and is able to generate meaningful timed-tests.

This paper presents the RAGE marketplace portal ( gamecomponents.eu ), which is intended as a hot spot and neutral single point of access for serious game technologies. The portal aims at fostering collaborations and the exchange of technical artefacts and associated knowledge and resources between different stakeholders in the field of serious gaming (e.g. educators, developers, researchers, publishers, policy makers and end-users). After a brief introduction to the H2020 RAGE project, the flexible design of the marketplace portal and its underlying software repository are presented. A concise overview is given of the initial set of advanced game technology components created by RAGE, that are currently exposed in the portal. For empirical validation of these components, we have developed 7 serious games based on subsets of these components, which were then tested in educational practice with several hundreds of end-users. This game components portal want to be a neutral hub not dependent on any technology or provider and therefore it is open for new game technologies submissions. We envision this marketplace as a knowledge and game technologies hub to support and amplify serious game development.

Serious games adoption is increasing, although their penetration in formal education is still surprisingly low. To improve their outcomes and increase their adoption in this domain, we propose new ways in which serious games can leverage the information extracted from player interactions, beyond the usual post-activity analysis. We focus on the use of: (1) open data which can be shared for research purposes, (2) real-time feedback for teachers that apply games in schools, to maintain awareness and control of their classroom, and (3) once enough data is gathered, data mining to improve game design, evaluation and deployment; and allow teachers and students to benefit from enhanced feedback or stealth assessment. Having developed and tested a game learning analytics platform throughout multiple experiments, we describe the lessons that we have learnt when analyzing learning analytics data in the previous contexts to improve serious games.

In this paper, we present a toolkit that aims at facilitating the design and implementation of serious games played in cross-reality environments. This type of systems interconnects a physical space with a virtual world. Its use as a platform for serious games will open the door to the design of collaborative learning experiences based on games played simultaneously by real and virtual players. However, due the wide range of technologies they require to integrate, their implementation could be complex and expensive. The toolkit aims at lowering the cost of building cross-reality serious games, so that the opportunities that this type of artefacts might offer in educational contexts can be more easily explored.

Computer programming has become a basic skill and is now part of the curriculum taught in middle school. In France, this educational reform was very sudden and many teachers are not yet trained adequately to teach this subject, leaving them in search of guidelines and tools to help them. It is in this context that we propose TurtleTable, an educational game, who has two main originalities. First of all, this game is not based on writing a computer program, like most of the other tools, but rather on executing a given program, step by step. These two approaches are complementary and essential to apprehend the logic behind computer programming. Secondly, TurtleTable is played in groups of three, by manipulating Tangible objects on an Interactive Tabletop (TIT). The players have to collaboratively move the objects on a grid, by following the instructions of the program on the screen. The game immediately indicates which instructions are executed correctly, allowing the learners to correct their mistakes. TurtleTable was tested by 59 middle school students. We developed four different interactions for TurtleTable (TIT, tabletop, tablet and computer) to compare their effects on motivation, collaboration and learning. The preliminary analysis show that the students really appreciated the game, especially the TIT version, that encouraged collaboration and gave them the impression they learned more.

This paper describes a learning-objective-centric workflow for modifying (‘modding’) existing tabletop games for educational purposes. The workflow combines existing research for serious games design with novel systematic analysis techniques for learning and game mechanics and gameplay loops to improve the understanding and rigour of the process. A detailed worked example applies the workflow to the development of a serious tabletop game with the educational goal of increasing knowledge and confidence of performing postgraduate literature reviews. Systematic application of the workflow to a real example supports the value of this approach and provides a useful template for educators to follow for increasing the quality and feasibility of self-designed serious games.

In this paper we present HPGE, an Haptic Plugin for Game Engines. Based on CHAI3D, it aims at providing an easy way to integrate haptics in game engines. HPGE provides C and C# bindings to be usable with almost any game engine or software. In addition, HPGE provides Unity3D C# scripts to facilitate the integration with Unity3D. Thanks to this plugin, it is possible to take advantage of the CHAI3D force-rendering algorithms and Unity3D Graphical User Interfaces to develop serious games. The paper goes through the requirements of such plugin, the issues that need to be addressed, to conclude with a description of the implementation and usage of the plugin.

Gamifying learning is a challenging task assuming holistic thinking about the learning experience rather than focusing on specific game elements. Part of the challenges in this task stem from the fact that gamification represents a class of systems combining utilitarian and hedonic benefits. In addition, there is a lack of appropriate tools supporting gamification of learning. To bridge this gap, we developed OneUp, a course gamification platform. This paper examines the challenges associated with gamifying learning along with OneUp’s support for overcoming them. It also presents a preliminary study of the impact of utilitarian and hedonic values in the context of a gamified Data Structures course.

Serious games’ success depends on its capabilities to engage learners and to provide them with personalized gaming and learning experiences. Therefore, theoretically sound mechanisms for gaining a certain level of understanding of learning and gaming processes by the game is crucial. Consequently, AI and machine learning technologies increasingly enter the field. These technologies often fail, however, since serious games either pose highly complex problems (combining gaming and learning process) or do not provide the extensive data bases that would be required. One solution might be allowing human intelligence or intuition influence AI processes. In the present study, we investigated pathfinding algorithms with and without human interventions to the algorithms. As a testbed, we used a clone of the Travelling Salesman problem, the Travelling Snakesman game. We found some evidence that in this particular pathfinding problem human interventions result in superior results as the MAXMIN Ant System algorithm.

Mobile Math Trails for Europe (MoMaTrE) is an ongoing project with the objective of conceptualizing and developing a fully gamified platform for creating, organizing and executing mathematics trails. We present some early experimental results concerning the introduction of shallow gamification techniques in the platform and discuss our plans for adding other gamification elements.

Gamification is often utilized to enhance the motivation to use digital learning tools. Usually, the effect of gamification alone is not sufficient to achieve sustainable self-directed occupation of students with digital learning tools. This statement is also confirmed by the authors’ experiences from previous uses of quiz apps to impart factual knowledge. The presented study describes the use of gamification in a university course in Urban Water Management in a twofold approach. The first approach of gamification is a gamified quiz app, which offers matches as well as ranking lists and competitions. The second approach is the gamified integration of the quiz app into the didactic context. The didactic context is characterized by the voluntary use of the quiz app and meaningful incentives, such as substitution of preliminary assessment tests. Compared to previous experiences, students showed a high level of engagement. Research instruments are the usage data of the quiz app and data collection at four points in time with the help of standardized measurement instruments (QCM, EGameFlow, and expectation-value model). The results include outstanding engagement of students indicated by an average of 2,223 questions per student answered during the semester, a high degree of confidence in mastering learning tasks among students, and a comparatively high level of knowledge improvement and social interaction reported by students. Overall, the study demonstrates the huge impact of deep gamification by integrating gamification into the didactic context and encourages further systematic research of deep gamification of didactic contexts.

In this work we introduce NarRob, a robot able to engage in conversations and tell stories, by accompanying the speech with proper gestures. We discuss about the main components of the robot’s architecture, and some possible education experiments that we are planning to carry out in real scholastic contexts.

Programmable toys are blurring the lines between serious games and educational robotics solutions. In this study, the CreaCube activity is analysed using Cubelets modular robotics based on the Learning Mechanics and Game Mechanics (LMGM) framework. The CreaCube playful activity is used to analyse the creative problem-solving process through a playful activity made from interconnectable electronic cubes. The resolution of the CreaCube activity involves the manipulation and assembly of cubes to build a vehicle that moves independently from an initial point to a final point. After describing the CreaCube activity from the perspective of the LMGM framework, the discussion is developed in relation to creative problem solving.

This paper focuses on the use of Augmented Reality technologies in relation to the introduction of game design elements to support university medical students in their learning activities during a human anatomy laboratory. In particular, the solution we propose will provide educational contents visually connected to the physical organ, giving also the opportunity to handle a 3D physical model that is a perfect reproduction of a real human organ.

Digital games hold a lot of promise as tools for improving mathematics and statistics instruction in the early school years. The current article presents a case study that explored the potential of well-designed, mobile educational game apps for enhancing early statistics education. A teaching intervention took place in a rural Grade 2 (ages 7–8) primary classroom in Cyprus, which aimed to integrate mobile game apps Electric Company Prankster Planet and Kahoot! within the mathematics curriculum, so as to support learning of key ideas related to data collection, analysis and tabular and graphical representation. The main insights gained from the study indicate that appropriate exploitation of digital games can motivate young children and help them internalize important concepts related to data analysis and probability.

Since game-based learning require much planning and careful design, and also tailoring the learning content to game structures, the uptake of game-based learning activities remains limited, as their construction often requires a significant amount of time, and the reuse capabilities of such activities are minimal. This paper describes how the different components of a gamified lessons path can be adapted and reused. In order to ensure the reusability of the different learning paths, a set of minigame templates has been used.

Games are used in cultural heritage to engage visitors, to function as learning tools, or even advertise a venue. However, games can be also used for quick profiling purposes to overcome the cold start problem of personalized museum applications. A profiling game aiming to extract users’ cognitive profiles was developed and tested with real users. The game follows the principles of pop psychology quizzes. The results of the game showed its potential in correctly predicting the cognitive profiles of users with average success rate around 90%. Being an entertaining and engaging way to involve visitors with diverse needs, games and especially profiling have a clear place in cultural heritage and should be investigated further. Our future work will focus on games that will try to predict different personality aspects, like Big Five dimensions.

We introduce the HIVELET (Human Interactive Virtual Experimentation for Low-burden Evaluation of Technology) approach that uses rapid-play digital games to collect quantitative and qualitative data on the effectiveness, acceptance, and impact of future and emerging technologies. The core principle is for the player to alternate between two modes: selecting candidate capabilities with a game theoretic limiting pressure, and executing a simulated mission using those selections in a virtual environment. Alternating between the two modes allows us to collect quantitative data on performance and preferences, improve the trustworthiness of qualitative feedback, and increase the chance of discovering novel uses. We report on preliminary results from applying the HIVELET in a military context.

Serious games have been recognized as an innovative approach to introduce instructional content of subjects at school [14]. In German middle school career choice is part of the curricula to introduce different career options and, at best, providing individual advice. Unfortunately, career choices of girls are still influenced by missing confidence in their abilities, role conflicts as well as resistant discrimination and harassment in the technology field [3, 11]. Women are also still underrepresented in the game industry, however, the number of female players is constantly rising [7]. Considering this, serious games seem to be a promising approach for girls to learn about career choice. The following paper will combine career choice findings and game design to present the German serious game “Serena Supergreen and the Broken Blade” - a point-and-click adventure aiming at promoting girl’s self-concept and interest in technology associated tasks. Results of a qualitative content analysis concerning girl’s perception of the game will be presented.

Students with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) experience difficulties in maintaining focused attention and remaining on-task and often have comorbid Specific Learning Difficulties (SLD). Given the characteristics of ADHD, interventions for the SLDs should be designed to enhance students’ motivation and engagement. Augmented Reality (AR) can improve students’ outcomes by enhancing attention and motivation. In this direction, the ADHD-Augmented (AHA) project implements an evidence-based intervention, supported by AR, to improve reading and spelling skills for children diagnosed with ADHD.

As automotive games are gaining interest, there is a lack in literature on specifications, user needs and requirements. We collected information from potential users on some basic features about two types of games for improving the driver performance: driver games and passenger games. In a survey with 18 respondents, both the typologies have been considered appealing, with drivers more interested in assessing performance and having suggestions, passengers in having fun. The greatest difference involves the requirement that a driver game should avoid distraction. Thus, the set-up phase should be doable when the vehicle is stopped, the visual feedback, if any, should be very limited (e.g., color spots), and most of the feedback should be provided through the audio channel. Passenger games might have more complex plots, with chance factors, and also support social interaction, for instance with passengers of other vehicles.

The aim of this paper is to address methodologically the challenges that arise when measuring attitude changes toward video game content. Drawing on findings from two pilot studies (N = 18, 25) and field notes from an ongoing empirical study (N = 140), we have identified three key challenges: reliability of measurement of attitudes, standardization of game experience for each participant, and measurement of attitudes toward socially sensitive topics. In this paper, we outline our research design that tried to address these challenges. In particular, we propose modifying the game, used as a research tool, to maintain player agency while ensuring all players engage with the measured phenomena. We also recommend using the concept of attitude strength in order to measure effectively attitudes toward socially sensitive topics. Overall, this paper provides preliminary insight into research on video games and attitude change within the field of digital game-based learning.