Outnumb3r3d : intrinsically motivating mathematics for the PlayStation 4

This paper and accompanying poster describes the design of an intrinsically integrated educational game to improve children’s competencies in mental mathematics. A number of researchers have suggested that educational games are more effective when they are closely integrated with their learning content. Specifically work by the lead author has showed that a closer integration between an educational game's core-mechanics and its learning content can be both more appealing (in terms of time spent on-task) and more educationally effective (in terms of learning outcomes) than a less integrated "edutainment" approach. However, cursory approaches to integrating learning content remain common in contemporary educational software, and the literature lacks an exemplar of what can be achieved using an integrated approach. The Outnumb3r3d game was conceived to provide a commercial and theoretical exemplar of intrinsic integration for the Nintendo Wii, but was never completed. This project is now porting the original Wii prototype onto the PlayStation 4 in order to revive Outnumb3r3d as a research project. This paper details the design of Outnumb3r3d with reference to the key theoretical constructs that underlie its pedagogical design. In doing so it provides an example of a game design created to integrate mathematical learning content seamlessly into the game's core mechanics, ensuring that the mathematics is what makes the game intrinsically motivating to play rather than trying to hide or "sugar coat" its learning content. At the time of writing the game’s implementation is still a “work in progress”, but is expected to be the subject of future empirical evaluations into its effectiveness as a teaching tool

Researching adaptivity for individual differences in numeracy games

There is increasing evidence that mathematics video games can play a large role in mathematics education, in support of children's learning. However, despite the interdisciplinary nature of the subject, research in this area has traditionally been fragmented between disciplines. The RAIDING project was conceived to bring together researchers in neuroscience, maths cognition, and game-based learning to develop a maths game that can act as a research platform for furthering knowledge in this field. The game will employ free-to-play design elements, alongside an adaptive learner model to investigate how children learn maths, through a range of empirical studies

The use of cognitive clinical interviews to explore learning from video game play

As research about the learning that results when children play video games becomes more popular, questions arise about what methodological and analytical tools are most appropriate to access and document this learning. Thus far, researchers have mostly adopted pre/post assessments, ethnography, and learning analytics. In this paper we (re)introduce cognitive clinical interviews as a methodology particularly suited to answering many of the most pressing questions about games and learning. To that end we describe four challenges of studying learning in video games with pre-post assessments that we claim can be addressed by the addition of clinical interviews. We then consider how clinical interviews can help to explain and describe patterns detected from ethnographic observations and detailed game play logs

Mejorando la evaluación de juegos serios mediante el uso de analíticas de aprendizaje

Este trabajo de tesis propone el uso de analíticas de aprendizaje para mejorar la evaluación en videojuegos educativos o juegos serios. El trabajo aborda dos aspectos necesarios para una evaluación de aprendizaje efectiva: 1) los requisitos necesarios en el diseño de juegos serios; 2) la infraestructura y el modelo de análisis necesario para las analíticas de aprendizaje. Estos dos trabajos, combinados, marcan un camino para aplicar analíticas de aprendizaje a juegos serios de manera efectiva. Esta aplicación se fundamenta en proporcionar a profesores e instructores resultados de aprendizaje (o niveles de conocimiento) de sus alumnos tras interactuar con un juego serio. El proceso empieza por el diseño de un juego serio efectivo, capaz de capturar, a partir de las interacciones de los estudiantes, el proceso de aprendizaje. A partir de ahí, se define un modelo de captura de datos que recoja estas interacciones. Después, estas interacciones son analizadas para obtener resultados de aprendizaje, y, finalmente, son mostradas a través de visualizaciones a los profesores e instructores, que pueden tomar acción a partir de ahí. El diseño de juego serios se aborda desarrollando una metodología que modela los aspectos fundamentales en el desarrollo e implementación de un juego serio, desde su incepción inicial a partir de objetivos educativos, pasando por su validación formal con usuarios expertos y terminando con el despliegue final, en el que los usuarios objetivo interactúan con el juego para lograr sus objetivos educativos. Esta metodología se ve acompañada, para cada uno de sus pasos, de las consideraciones necesarias para habilitar la evaluación automática del juego serio, y de un patrón de diseño destinado a estructurar la manera en la que los juegos serios presentan los contenidos educativos a sus jugadores..

Towards a System of Guidance, Assistance and Learning Analytics Based on Multi Agent System Applied on Serious Games

With the revolution that the education field has known concerning the methods of learning and especially the integration of new technology, several new tools have appeared to replace the tools already existing, and among them there are serious games, serious games as new tool dedicated to education have occupied an important place, and replaced other tools often used in the learning process. But in the order that serious games reach the intended objectives and help instructors to achieve their perspectives considered, they must be equipped with a guidance and assistance system that will assist the learners during the progression in the sequence of the video game, and in addition, they must be equipped with a system of learning analytics that will help instructors to improve the learning process and teaching methods according to the learning outcomes and feedbacks of their learners. In this perspective of research and development we will establish in this paper a new system of assistance, guidance and learning analytics based on a multi agent system that will work in tandem with a web-based serious game

El proceso de desarrollo de serious games : Modelos, herramientas y analíticas de aprendizaje

Los serious games (SG) son aplicaciones interactivas que se concentran en el uso de los principios de diseño de juegos para otros fines no meramente lúdicos. En este trabajo se describe el Proyecto de investigación “El proceso de desarrollo de SG. Modelos, herramientas y analíticas de aprendizaje” que será desarrollado durante los años 2020/2021 en la Facultad de Ingeniería de la Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata (UNMDP), donde se proseguirá abordando el desarrollo de SG desde las problemáticas relativas a su aplicabilidad en diferentes dominios como defensa, salud, educación, gestión de emergencias, planificación urbana e ingeniería. Como educadores y desarrolladores de videojuegos, la validez de los SG con respecto a sus objetivos educativos debe ser tanto mensurable como medida. La naturaleza interactiva de los videojuegos hace que la aplicación de analíticas de aprendizaje se constituya en una herramienta útil para capturar los datos de interacción de los estudiantes o aprendices con el propósito de interpretar el proceso de aprendizaje. Sin embargo, existen escasas investigaciones y normas para comunicar información entre videojuegos y sus módulos de seguimiento. Este proyecto tiene como objetivo consolidar el proceso de análisis de la interacción de los aprendices en SG a través de la extracción de información relevante del aprendizaje y la generación de reportes que visualicen los resultados. En este proyecto se combinan dos tendencias principales en la investigación del aprendizaje con tecnologías: SG y analíticas de aprendizaje.Eje: Tecnología informática aplicada en educación.Red de Universidades con Carreras en Informátic

A MULTI-LAYERED TAXONOMY OF LEARNING ANALYTICS APPLICATIONS

Digital technologies have become immersed in education systems and the stakeholders have discovered a pervasive need to reform existing learning and teaching practices. Among the emerging educational digital technologies, learning analytics create a disruptive potential as it enables the power of educational decision support, real-time feedback and future prediction. Until today, the field of learning analytics is rapidly evolving, but still immature and especially low on ontological insights. Little guidance is available for educational designers and researchers when it comes to studies applied learning analytics as a method. Hence, this study offers a well-structured multi-layered taxonomy of learning analytics applications for deeper understanding of learning analytics

Participative Production of Students in the Development of Math Video Games at Higher Level Education

This paper shows how, through a participative production of student’s community of the Metropolitan Polytechnic University of Hidalgo in Mexico, it is possible to improve the academic performance of new students in the propedeutic course of mathematics. The production consists of the design, development and application of an educational video game focused on mathematics, specifically algebra. As a result of the participation of students, there is a larger identification and a sense of belonging to their engineering. This is a benefit for students who aspire to be admitted in the Engineering of Animation and Visual Effects because, in addition to receiving feedback about the topics that are learnt in class, they can observe digital scenes and 3D animations that they will be able to create during their university studies

The Use of Learning Analytics Interactive Dashboards in Serious Games: A Review of the Literature

The learning analytics in serious games, corresponds to a subject in increasing demand in the educational field. In this context, there is a need to study how data visualizations found in the literature are adopted in learning analytics in serious games. This paper presents a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) on how the evolution of studies associated with the use of learning analytics interactive dashboards in serious games is processed, seeking to investigate the characteristics of using dashboards for viewing educational data. A bibliometric analysis was carried out in which 75 relevant studies were selected from the Scopus, Web of Science, and IEEExplore databases. From the data analysis, it was observed that in the current literature there is a reduced number of studies containing the main actors in the learning process, as follows: teachers/instructors, students/participants, game developers/designers, and managers/researchers. In the vast majority of investigated studies, data visualization algorithms are used, where the main focus takes into account only actors, such as teachers/instructors and students/participants