A Theoretical Background for Educational Video Games: Games, Signs, Knowledge

Introduction

The potential of video games for learning is now widely accepted among the community of Educational Technology (Quinn, 1997; Jones, 1998, Amory, 2001; Rieber, 1996; Prensky, 2001; Gee, 2003). Contrary to common belief, play and games are not specific to children, but constitute an essential activity for adults too (Huizinga, 1938; Rieber, 1996). Play is not frivolous but can be quite serious (Rieber, 1996). The recent explosion of computer and video games in modern culture makes it even more obvious that games are to be considered as a new medium, with unique properties.

Among the most cited advantages of video games over other instructional technologies are their motivational appeal and their compatibility with modern pedagogy (Kirriemuir & McFarlane, 2004, p. 19).

In terms of motivation, it is argued that games are intrinsically motivating; players are motivated to play regardless of the consequences of the learning activity (Malone & Lepper, 1987; Jones, 1998). This is related to one fundamental characteristic of a game: the fact that it has no perceived utility for the player (Huizinga, 1938). Games are played because they provide a multitude of emotions, such as fear, surprise, pride, relief, etc. and have other motivational aspects such as challenge and fantasy. Given this intrinsic motivation to play, several educational games have been developed, including all the games considered as “edutainment”. While it has been shown that games in certain contexts provide higher levels of motivation of engagement than traditional education (Wishart, 1990 in Hays, 2005), the level of engagement or “gameplay” of these titles seems lower than in pure entertainment games (Hagbood, 2005), as if adding pedagogical constraints to a game diminished the motivation. In other terms, “making learning fun”, as stated by Malone & Lepper (1987) remains a difficult task (Hays, 2005).

In terms of pedagogy, the active nature of games encourages learner-centered pedagogy. As described by Rieber (1996), play is a natural learning strategy for children according to the Piagetian theory; this makes video games suitable for computer-based learning. Game-based learning is usually associated to the situated learning theory (Brown, Collins & Duguid, 1989), because in many games, especially 3D games, any action has a meaning within a situation in the game (Gee, 2003, p. 84). However, in many educational games, the player's actions are not used to promote situated learning. Indeed, among players' actions, some are dedicated to learning while others are purely for the game play, resulting in a dissociation between game and learning which is contrary to situated learning. This insufficient integration between game and learning is also reported by several research studies (Malone & Lepper, 1987; Kirriemuir & McFarlane, 2004; Habgood, et al., 2005; Szilas & Sutter-Widmer, 2009).

Besides, using existing games for educational purposes is very difficult, since the games were not designed for that purpose. For example, several practical difficulties are reported when using commercial history strategy games to learn history in a classroom environment (Egenfeldt-Nielsen, 2004; Connoly & Stansfield, 2006).