Sustainability has become an important blueprint to achieve a better future for all, and as part of this process, nations are called to accelerate an energy transition towards clean energy solutions. However, an often-neglected pillar is educating individuals on the benefits and challenges of energy efficiency and renewable energy, especially among young people. Their support and willingness to use clean energies will be a significant driver in short, medium and long term. However, reality shows that attention from youth on these issues has not been sufficient yet. Formal education settings become therefore a key place to educate youth in the energy transition. In search of innovative approaches, game-based learning is gaining popularity among scholars and practitioners; it can contribute to content development of complex issues by integrating insights from different disciplines in an interactive, fun and engaging manner.In this context, we would like to present “the We-Energy Game” as an innovative educational strategy which makes use of game-based learning to create understanding on the challenges in the provision of affordable energy from renewable sources for an entire town. During the game, players negotiate, from their respective roles, which energy source they want to employ and on which location, with the goal to make a village or city energy neutral. The game has been played by students in higher education institutions in The Netherlands.In addition to introducing the game, a study is presented on the effects of the game on students´ awareness on the energy transition, self-efficacy -the feeling that they can contribute to a sustainable energy transition in their towns by themselves- and collective efficacy -the feeling that they can contribute to a sustainable energy transition in their towns together with their community-. For that purpose, we conducted a survey with 100 bachelor (Dutch and international) students aged between 18 and 30 years old, at Hanze University of Applied Sciences, before and after playing the game. We also conducted a group discussion with a smaller group of students to understand their opinion about the game. From the survey, results reveal an increase in awareness about the energy transition, as well as (slightly higher) collective efficacy compared to self-efficacy. From the group discussion, findings reveal that the game makes students reflect on the complexity of the process and need for collaboration among different stakeholders. It also shows how educational games have still a long way to go to achieve the high levels of engagement of commercial games, despite the fact that students still preferred to have this type of interactive practice rather than a traditional class characterized by a unidirectional transmission of information. Different implications must be taken into account for educators when interested in implementing game-based learning in class, including immediate feedback, appropriate length of gameplay during class, and time for a reflection and critical thinking after playing the game.
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Geleide Audiomotor Exploratie (GAME) is een innovatieve lesmethode waarmee slechthorenden met een Cochleair Implantaat (CI) piano kunnen leren spelen zonder muzieknotatie. Het doel van GAME is om door actief muziek te maken, transfereffecten van muziek- naar het spraakdomein te realiseren. Hierdoor kunnen CI-gebruikers zowel muziek als spraak beter gaan verstaan. Hoewel GAME ontworpen is om in de gewone lespraktijk gebruikt te worden, vereist het lesgeven met GAME nieuwe kennis en vaardigheden van pianodocenten. Dit onderzoek is daarom gericht op het ontwikkelen van instructiemateriaal en scholing voor het lesgeven met GAME. Zes pianodocenten en een ‘critical friend’ deden mee aan dit onderwijskundig ontwerp onderzoek. Tijdens het onderzoek zijn de lesmethode en het lesmateriaal aangepast en doorontwikkeld. De uitkomsten van het onderzoek laten zien dat docenten een ‘totaalpakket’ nodig hebben: (1) een handleiding gecombineerd met (2) demonstratie video’s, (3) lesmateriaal en voorbeeld lesplannen, (4) workshops en (5) collegiaal overleg. Deelnemende docenten vonden vooral de video’s gecombineerd met uitleg belangrijk omdat GAME totaal anders is dan traditionele lesmethodes. Het onderzoek heeft geleid tot suggesties voor implementatie in lespraktijken en Hoger Beroeps Onderwijs en aanbevelingen voor mogelijke toepassingen van GAME bij andere doelgroepen, zoals leerlingen met leerproblemen.
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An important step in the design of an effective educational game is the formulation of the to-be-achieved learning goals. The learning goals help shape the content and the flow of the entire game, i.e. they provide the basis for choosing the game’s core (learning) mechanics. A mistake in the formulation of the learning goals or the resulting choice in game mechanics can have large consequences, as the game may not lead to the intended effects. At the moment, there are many different methods for determining the learning goals; they may be derived by a domain expert, based on large collections of real-life data, or, alternatively, not be based on anything in particular. Methods for determining the right game mechanics range from rigid taxonomies, loose brainstorming sessions, to, again, not any method in particular. We believe that for the field of educational game design to mature, there is a need for a more uniform approach to establishing the learning goals and translating them into relevant and effective game activities. This paper explores two existing, non-game design specific, methods to help determine learning goals and the subsequent core mechanics: the first is through a Cognitive Task Analysis (CTA), which can be used to analyse and formalize the problem and the knowledge, skills, attitudes that it is comprised of, and the second is through the Four Components Instructional Design (4C-ID), which can be used to determine how the task should be integrated into an educational learning environment. Our goal is to see whether these two methods provide the uniform approach we need. This paper gives an overview of our experiences with these methods and provides guidelines for other researchers on how these methods could be used in the educational game design process.
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Design and development practitioners such as those in game development often have difficulty comprehending and adhering to the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), especially when designing in a private sensitive way. Inadequate understanding of how to apply the GDPR in the game development process can lead to one of two consequences: 1. inadvertently violating the GDPR with sizeable fines as potential penalties; or 2. avoiding the use of user data entirely. In this paper, we present our work on designing and evaluating the “GDPR Pitstop tool”, a gamified questionnaire developed to empower game developers and designers to increase legal awareness of GDPR laws in a relatable and accessible manner. The GDPR Pitstop tool was developed with a user-centered approach and in close contact with stakeholders, including practitioners from game development, legal experts and communication and design experts. Three design choices worked for this target group: 1. Careful crafting of the language of the questions; 2. a flexible structure; and 3. a playful design. By combining these three elements into the GDPR Pitstop tool, GDPR awareness within the gaming industry can be improved upon and game developers and designers can be empowered to use user data in a GDPR compliant manner. Additionally, this approach can be scaled to confront other tricky issues faced by design professionals such as privacy by design.
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The use of games as interventions in the domain of health care is of-ten paired with evaluating the effects in randomized clinical trials. The iterative design and development process of games usually also involves an evaluation phase, aimed at identifying improvements for subsequent iterations. Since game design theory and theories from associated fields provide no unified framework for designing successful interventions, interpreting evaluation results and for-mulating improvements is complicated. This case study explores an approach of monitoring design decisions and corresponding theories throughout the design and development cycle, allowing evaluation results to be attributed to design decisions. Such an approach may allow the game design and development pro-cess to iterate the game more efficiently towards use in practice.3rd European Conference on Gaming and Playful Interaction in Health Care.
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© Springer International Publishing AG 2016. A serious game needs to combine a number of different aspects to help the end user in reaching the desired effects. This requires incorporating a broad range of different aspects in the design, stemming from a broad range of different fields of expertise. For designers, developers, researchers, and other stakeholders it is not straightforward how to organize the design and development process, to make sure that these aspects are properly addressed. In this chapter we will discuss a number of ways of organizing the design and development process and various models that support specific design decisions during this process, concluding with a discussion of design patterns for serious games.
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What makes an educational game good? This paper describes three research directions that could provide insight in the underlying principles of effective educational games. These aspects are 1) The importance of distinguishing between types of to-be-learned knowledge, 2) the need to understand the relationship between game mechanics and learning goals, and 3) using research on intelligent tutoring systems to create more personalized learning experiences. Central in these directions is the concept of cognition and how it impacts the educational effectiveness of an educational game. This paper will give a short introduction on cognition and discuss why the research directions require further research.
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Learner metacognition is one of the most influential factors that positively affects learning. Previous work shows that game-based learning can contribute to supporting and developing metacognitive knowledge and skills of learners. While there are many specific examples of such games, it remains unclear how to effectively design game-based learning environments to achieve this in an effective way. In other words: there is sufficient case-specific evidence, but limited design knowledge derived from such cases. In this paper, we attempt to identify such intermediary design knowledge that resides between specific games and generalized theory. We present three design experiments where game-based metacognitive training is evaluated in real-world educational settings. We collected insights regarding usefulness, motivation, usage, effort, and metacognition among participating students. From these experiments we identify what was learned in the form of design recommendations and, as such, contribute to collecting intermediary design knowledge for designing game-based metacognitive training.
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For over thirty years, there has been a discussion about the effectiveness of educational games in comparison to traditional learning materials. To help further this discussion, we aim to understand ‘how educational games work’ by formalising (and visualising) the educational and motivational aspects of such games. We present a model that focuses on the relationship between three different aspects: user properties, game mechanics, and learning objectives. In two example cases, we have demonstrated how the model can be used to analyse existing games and their game/instructional design, and suggest possible improvements in both motivational and educational aspects based on the model. As such, we introduce a novel approach to analysing educational games and, by inference, a novel design process for designing more effective educational games.
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The design of health game rewards for preadolescents Videogames are a promising strategy for child health interventions, but their impact can vary depending on the game mechanics used. This study investigated achievement-based ‘rewards’ and their design among preadolescents (8-12 years) to assess their effect and explain how they work. In a 2 (game reward achievement system: social vs. personal) x 2 (game reward context: in-game vs. out-game) between-subjects design, 178 children were randomly assigned to one of four conditions. Findings indicated that a ‘personal’ achievement system (showing one’s own high scores) led to more attention and less frustration than a ‘social’ achievement system (showing also high scores of others) which, in turn, increased children’s motivation to make healthy food choices. Furthermore, ‘out’-game rewards (tangible stickers allocated outside the game environment) were liked more than ‘in’-game rewards (virtual stickers allocated in the game environment), leading to greater satisfaction and, in turn, a higher motivation to make healthy food choices.
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