Introducing the Game Design Matrix: A Step-by-Step Process for Creating Serious Games

The Game Design Matrix makes effective game design accessible to novice game designers. Serious Games are a powerful tool for educators seeking to boost the level of student engagement and application in academic environments, but the can be difficult to incorporate into existing courses due to availability and the cost of quality game design. The Game Design Matrix was used by two educators, novice game designers, to create a serious game. The games were assessed in an academic setting and observed to be effective in engagement, interaction, and achieving higher levels of learning

Assessing Foreign Language Learning Through Mobile Game-Based Learning Environments

With increasing globalization, foreign language skills have become one of the main requirements when applying for a job in leading ICT companies. Due to their ubiquity and multi-functionality, mobile devices allow teachers to provide technology-friendly students with highly dynamic learning contents in line with their lifestyle. Unfortunately, most of the available APPs still support a mainly one-way interaction (teacher to learner or computer-client interaction). The authors have designed an APP based on a highly interactive, ubiquitous and constructive learning approach. The current paper illustrates firstly how the APP has helped learners to get actively involved in their own learning process sharing and assessing their foreign language knowledge. And secondly, how students’ logs can be used to automate the assessment of different skills such as the ability to explain terms in a foreign language or to assess definitions created by other game players

Imparting Systems Engineering Experience via Interactive Fiction Serious Games

Serious games for education are becoming increasing popular. Interactive fiction games are some of the most popular in app stores and are also beginning to be heavily used in education to teach analysis and decision-making. Noting that it is difficult for systems engineers to experience all necessary situations which prepare them for the role of a chief engineer, in this paper, we explore the use of interactive fiction serious games to impart systems engineering experience and to teach systems engineering principles. The results of a cognitive viability, qualitative viability, and replayability analysis of 14 systems engineering serious games developed in the interactive fiction genre are presented. The analysis demonstrates that students with a systems engineering background are able to learn the Twine gaming engine and create a serious game aligned to the Apply level of Bloom’s Taxonomy which conveys a systems engineering experience and teaches a systems engineering principle within a four-week period of time. These quickly generated games cognitive, quality, and replayability scores indicate they provide some opportunity for high-level thinking, are of high quality, and with above average replayability, are likely to be played multiple times and/or recommended to others

ABY Interactive: A Business Plan for an Interactive Media Company

Abstract Interactive Media and Game development are experiencing an incredible growth the recent year. Digital devices are in constant evolution, and the developers/artist are glad to unleash their full potential by creating innovative content that take advantage of those capacities. Although creation and innovation is not what is limiting this field, the business side to this industry is the biggest challenge to this kind of content. Making a good product needs a team effort, and these employees will obviously need good money for their expertise, which, means the product needs to be funded to make it happen. In this context I find myself in the perfect position for this kind of adventure as I both love games and I like to play the role of the entrepreneur/problem solver. As a Fulbright scholar I feel my self-obligated to help my country back with all the knowledge and the opportunities I got offered by coming here and learning from U.S professionals in the industry This brings us to the core of this thesis, by doing a Co-op job in Petricore, shadowing its CEO and surrounding myself by a huge community of professionals from the industry, researching the best way to start my own startup €œABY€� in the same industry in Tunisia. I will also using auto ethnography and interviews to collect relevant data in an ultimate goal of building a lightweight business plan to guide me in starting this adventure in my home country

Investigation of the Effects of a Situated Learning Digital Game on Mathematics Education at the Primary School Level

Previous research suggests games can improve learning outcomesand students’ motivation. However, there still exists insufficient clarity on the design principles and pedagogical approach that should underpinmathematics educational games. This thesis is aimed at evaluating the effects of an educationalgame on the learningperformance and levels of anxiety promoted by mathematics activities of primary school students. The game was designed based on theprinciples of situated learning, following acombination of an in-depth literature review, a collection of teachers’ perceptions about educational games, and features ofclassroom games. Empirical evaluation of the game was performed through a 5-weeks experiment carried out in three Irish schools, with the participationof 88 students. The investigationhad a pre-post-test designand aimed to evaluate the effects of the gameon students’ mathematics performance and anxiety. In the first week, students answered the Learning Outcomes on Mathematics for Children (LOMC), a questionnaire that measured students’ knowledge ofmathematics. The same studentsalso answered the Modified Abbreviated Math Anxiety Scale (mAMAS), a validated self-report questionnaire to assess maths anxiety ofprimary school children. During the following three weeks, students had weekly gameplay sessions of 45-60 minutes

Investigating the Effects of a Virtual Process Environment on the Comprehension of Business Process Models

Within the scope of Business Process Management and Modeling, gamification is used, inter alia, to promote process model comprehension and for motivational and educational purposes. In the context of gamification in Business Process Management, this master thesis aims to investigate the effects of a virtual process environment on the cognitive load a process reader perceives during the comprehension of a process model. The comprehension of process models is essential for the proper modeling of business processes, and vice versa. In addition to the previous research approaches in terms of gamification regarding the management and modeling of business processes, this master thesis takes into account concepts from cognitive research. A study with 72 participants was conducted online. Thereby, measures of interest were the cognitive load of the textual process description, the process model and the process model extended with graphics extracted from the virtual process environment. Therefore, a fractorial desgin was established as only the process model was extended with static pictures. The virtual process environment is realized through a video based on a 3D - warehouse scenario game. As a result, no significant difference in the perceived cognitive load of the process reader was found between the three process variants. In summary, after experiencing a virtual process environment, the cognitive load of the process documentations does not differ significantly. Further analysis has shown that the process reader’s confidence in the completeness and adequacy of the shown process documentation is associated with the process document variant. Participants were more confident about the correctness of the process model extended with graphics

Influence of Psychological Distance on Process Modeling: A Gamification Approach

Nowadays, Business Process Management (BPM) has progressed significantly and established itself as an important management concept for enterprises. For creating efficient and effective business processes enterprises have given process models a high priority. A well-documented business process is intended not only to describe a procedure in detail, but serves as a foundation for further actions such as process automation, improving process performance, and the identification of potential consequences as well as the quickness to respond for changes. To this end, it is important to ensure that process models represent the corresponding real world business processes as accurately as possible. In turn, a not proper described business process may lead to ineffectiveness, costs, and even losses. Hence, a focus is set on the quality, granularity as well as structure of process models. By now, numerous guidelines exist for creating correct and sound process models in respect to their quality, granularity, and resulting structure. However, hardly research addresses cognitive aspects when creating process models. Thereby, cognitive aspects are of particular importance for creating and understanding process models. This thesis contributes insights from a controlled experiment investigating the influence of psychological distance on the process of process modeling. More precisely, the effects of social distance of a process designer to the modeled domain has on the creation of process models are evaluated. In this context, the recent and emerging trend of gamification is applied. Therefore, gamification in a 3D virtual world is used to enhance the effects of social distance and for a better reflection of a real world problem. The final results obtained from the experiment do not agree with the theory. In particular, significant differences between low and high social distance with respect to process model quality, granularity, and structure are observed but are contrary to the stated goal of the experiment. Hence, the findings underline the importance of understanding the effects of cognitive aspects on the process of process modeling. However, the results may provide valuable incitements for enterprises to compose adequate teams for creating or optimizing business process models