Serious Video Game Effectiveness

Abstract

Given the interactive media characteristics and intrinsically motivating appeal, computer games are often praised for their potential and value in education. However, comprehensive research testing these assumptions is still missing. Preliminary comparative studies on the learning effects of games versus traditional media have shown some promise. In this paper, we describe a comparative study that thoroughly investigates the effects of interactivity and media richness on science learning among college students. We also discuss important results and implications yielded from comparisons among four conditions in our experiment (game, replay, hypertext and text)