Abstract
The exponential growth of technology is transforming most existing sectors in the world. One of the technologies that is significantly impacting our society is video games, which have become a new cultural form of expression. Moreover, research suggests that, especially within educational contexts, they present great learning opportunities. However, little is known in serious games about the interplay of the in-game activity, learning gains, and enjoyment with the game. Therefore, in this chapter, the authors use data from a pilot study conducted with a STEM inquiry-learning serious game to compute behavioral metrics and analyze their relationship with the learning gains and enjoyment of students based on survey responses. The author reports on the exploratory results of the different metrics and correlation analysis to analyze the interplay between these three sets of metrics. This work will exemplify the potential that learning analytics approaches and serious games have to transform education and training across contexts.
TopIntroduction
The exponential growth of technology is transforming most existing sectors in the world, increasing the performance and potential applications that in the past no one thought could be real (L. M., Madhushree and R., Revathi and Aithal, 2019). One of the sectors that is being importantly impacted is the educational one, where the incorporation educational technologies is helping improve the quality of the learning process, facilitating the work of instructors and enhancing the education received by students (Dabbagh et al., 2016; Thomas, 2016). Within these educational technologies, there are multiple directions in the literature, and within this chapter, we focus on the potential of video games within educational contexts (Squire, 2011).
The importance of video games in our society has also raised significantly during the last decade. Video games have become a new cultural form of expression and are impacting everyday life such as consumption, communities and the identities of the individuals that belong to a society (Daniel & Garry, 2018). Moreover, they are becoming very widespread, and all kids are growing up playing video games, with will change the future generations where video games will become a native medium. Also, the perceptions regarding video games are changing, as 74% of American parents believe that video games can be educational for their children, and 57% also play video games with them (ESA, 2019). Therefore, video games are going further beyond mere entertainment purposes and are deeply penetrating society at different scales and for multiple purposes (Muriel & Crawford, 2020).
Within educational contexts, video games have been one of those educational technologies that have become trendier over the last decade. Several authors have addressed the benefits of game-based learning, as games can represent more interactive scenarios that players can inhabit, adapting to a set of rules and constraints, to accomplish an established objective after surpassing a series of challenges (Gee, 2003, 2008; Prensky, 2006); this resembles much more realistically real-life situations than other more passive mediums like the ones that learners are usually exposed during traditional education. In fact, several literature reviews have shared very positive insights about the use of games for education, for example for the acquisition of 21st century skills (Qian & Clark, 2016) or for learning math (Divjak & Tomić, 2011). However, games are still scarcely used for educational purposes, and little is known yet about why games work and in which cases they might not be good options.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Educational Technology: This term englobes technologies, software, and hardware that are used as part of the educational and training process of learners.
Technology-Enhanced Learning: This term refers specifically to improve learning with the use of technology, and therefore it needs to justify how the technology has improved the previous learning setup.
In-Game Metrics: When players interact with the game, they generate tracking logs which are raw data containing a detailed record of the actions that they performed during the game. This term refers to using quantitative approaches to transform the raw data in metrics that can reconstruct the behavior of players with the game.
Serious Games: These are games that have as main purpose one beyond entertainment, for example learning, training a user to change their habits, or health rehabilitation.
Game-Based Learning: This is the field that addresses how to use games as a medium to learn, either in informal or in formal contexts.
Learning Analytics: This field of research collects data from the learners and the educational context where the education is taking place and applies quantitative and qualitative methods to understand and improve the learning process and the context where it is happening.
Learning Gains: This metric is computed by calculating the difference between a post-test and a pre-test. The pre-test usually takes places before developing a learning activity and the post-test after the activity is finished. It helps understand if students are learning or not.
Stem Education: This term refers broadly to education on science, technology, engineering, and math topics, which is often considered as a specific branch of education to the specific nature and pedagogical approaches of these knowledge areas.