A Critical Review of the Effectiveness of Narrative-Driven Digital Educational Games

Introduction

At the turn of the 20th Century, Sigmund Freud (1908) noted that “The child’ s best-loved and most intense occupation is with his play or games” (p. 421). For Bettelheim (1987), play permitted the child “… to resolve in symbolic form unsolved problems of the past and to cope directly or symbolically with present concerns. It is also his most significant tool for preparing himself for the future and its tasks” (p. 170). Human beings play in structured and unstructured ways. Our earliest play is often unstructured, with items found at hand, with rules improvised to promote fun and social cohesion. In this way, we learn how the world works, and better understand our role in it (Brown, 2009). Structured games have existed for millennia, during which time they have taken on many guises, from the athletic games of the Ancient Greeks to board games, card games, children’s games, and – most recently – digital games.

Such games, once maligned within classrooms for their perceived potential to encourage violent behaviour (Anderson, 2004; Anderson & Bushman, 2002) and addiction (Griffiths, Davies, & Chappell, 2004), are now viewed by many in a more favourable light. James Paul Gee, one of the best known and most widely cited proponents digital educational game research, suggests that digital games, when well-constructed, offer the player/learner information on demand, just in time, and within a context that they care about (2003). Good games, he suggests, present problems in a logical order, and allow the player to develop increasingly complex skills through an ascending process of challenge and mastery, a process that he likens to the development of expertise in any domain. Gee (2011) has written, also, about the role of narrative in commercial and educational games. He argues that it is by walking in the shoes of the story’s central character that the player can develop empathy as well as the ability to critically reflect upon their own behaviour in real life. In this process, such games have the potential to encourage the player to explore, engage in personal meaning-making and play with social boundaries (Shaffer, Squire, Halverson, & Gee, 2005).

Despite the rising number of studies that have sought to explore the effectiveness of digital educational games, a large-scale review has not yet been undertaken to synthesise what is known about the effectiveness of one of these games’ most potentially powerful facets: narrative. This review seeks to address this gap in the literature.