Designing Stories for Educational Video Games: Analysis and Evaluation

Designing Stories for Educational Video Games: Analysis and Evaluation

J.R. López-Arcos (University of Granada, Granada, Spain), N. Padilla-Zea (Universidad Internacional de la Rioja (UNIR), Logroño, Spain), P. Paderewski (University of Granada, Granada, Spain) and F.L. Gutiérrez (University of Granada, Granada, Spain)
Copyright: © 2017 |Pages: 13
DOI: 10.4018/IJWLTT.2017100101

Abstract

The use of video games as an educational tool initially causes a higher degree of motivation in students. However, the inclusion of educational activities throughout the game can cause this initial interest to be lost. A good way to maintain motivation is to use a good story that is used as guiding thread with which to contextualize the other video game elements (characters, scenarios, challenges, scores, etc.). A method is necessary for analyzing the effectiveness of the story in a video game. The authors propose an analysis method that includes user-centered techniques. This method has been applied to several cases of study. In this paper, they describe its application to the design of an educational video game in the field of mathematics and an adventure game for training the reading skills.
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2. Previous Works

This work is the result of comprehensive research into the quality of educational video games and its relationship with their design. We began our research by proposing a framework for the development of a specific educational game. This framework attaches great importance to the necessary balance between the ludic component of a video game and the educational content to be taught ((Padilla-Zea, 2009)). We have continued working on the process of enriching the evaluation of video games by incorporating the analysis of emotions that are produced in the player (González, 2011).

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