Flow framework for analyzing the quality of educational games

The challenge of educational game design is to develop solutions that appeal to as many players as possible, but are still educationally effective. One foundation for analyzing and designing educational engagement is the flow theory. This article presents a flow framework that describes the dimensions of flow experience that can be used to analyze the quality of educational games. The framework also provides design-support for producing good educational games, because it can be used to reveal ways to optimize learning effects and user experience. However, the framework only works as a link between educational theory and game design, which is useful for game analysis but does not provide the means for a complete game design. To evaluate the elements included in the proposed framework, we analyzed university student’s experiences in participating in a business simulation game. We found that the students’ flow experience in the game was high and the findings indicated that sense of control, clear goals and challenge-skill dimensions of flow scored the highest. Overall, the results indicate that the flow framework is a useful tool to aid the analysis of game-based learning experiences

Flow framework for analyzing the quality of educational games

The challenge of educational game design is to develop solutions that appeal to as many players as possible, but are still educationally effective. One foundation for analyzing and designing educational engagement is the flow theory. This article presents a flow framework that describes the dimensions of flow experience that can be used to analyze the quality of educational games. The framework also provides design-support for producing good educational games, because it can be used to reveal ways to optimize learning effects and user experience. However, the framework only works as a link between educational theory and game design, which is useful for game analysis but does not provide the means for a complete game design. To evaluate the elements included in the proposed framework, we analyzed university student&rsquo;s experiences in participating in a business simulation game. We found that the students&rsquo; flow experience in the game was high and the findings indicated that sense of control, clear goals and challenge-skill dimensions of flow scored the highest. Overall, the results indicate that the flow framework is a useful tool to aid the analysis of game-based learning experiences The challenge of educational game design is to develop solutions that appeal to as many players as possible, but are still educationally effective. One foundation for analyzing and designing educational engagement is the flow theory. This article presents a flow framework that describes the dimensions of flow experience that can be used to analyze the quality of educational games. The framework also provides design-support for producing good educational games, because it can be used to reveal ways to optimize learning effects and user experience. However, the framework only works as a link between educational theory and game design, which is useful for game analysis but does not provide the means for a complete game design. To evaluate the elements included in the proposed framework, we analyzed university student&rsquo;s experiences in participating in a business simulation game. We found that the students&rsquo; flow experience in the game was high and the findings indicated that sense of control, clear goals and challenge-skill dimensions of flow scored the highest. Overall, the results indicate that the flow framework is a useful tool to aid the analysis of game-based learning experiences.</div

Gamification in higher education and stem : a systematic review of literature

In recent years, gamification, the use of game elements in non-game contexts, has drawn the attention of educators due to the possibility of making learning more motivating and engaging; this led to an increase of research in the field. Despite the availability of literature reviews about gamification and its effects, no work to this date has focused exclusively on Higher Education (HE). Next, worldwide there is an increasing demand for skilled Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) professionals that meet the challenges related to scientific and technological innovations of the 21st Century. This lead to the need of strengthening STEM Higher Education. This brings us to the purpose of this work: presenting a systematic literature review of empirical studies about gamification STEM related Higher Education. This review study started from a systematic mapping design of 'Web of Science' articles, with following inclusion criteria: empirical gamification studies set up in HE, published between 2000 and 2016; focusing on undergraduate or graduate students; in the STEM knowledge field, and set up in authentic settings. An initial search resulted in 562 potentially relevant articles. After applying all selection criteria, only 18 studies could be retained. 12 additional articles were included by analyzing references from earlier literature reviews, resulting in 30 studies to be included. Analysis results show how a combination of game elements (e.g. leaderboards, badges, points and other combinations) positively affects students' performance, attendance, goal orientation and attitude towards mostly computer science related subjects. The analysis results also point at a lack of studies in certain STEM areas, a lack of studies that identify the particular game element associated with the positive differential impact on student performance; a lack of validated psychometric measurements, and lack of focus on student variables that could/should be taken into account as mediating/moderating variables clarifying the impact of gamification in the HE focus on STEM learning and teaching

Argotario: Computational Argumentation Meets Serious Games

An important skill in critical thinking and argumentation is the ability to spot and recognize fallacies. Fallacious arguments, omnipresent in argumentative discourse, can be deceptive, manipulative, or simply leading to `wrong moves' in a discussion. Despite their importance, argumentation scholars and NLP researchers with focus on argumentation quality have not yet investigated fallacies empirically. The nonexistence of resources dealing with fallacious argumentation calls for scalable approaches to data acquisition and annotation, for which the serious games methodology offers an appealing, yet unexplored, alternative. We present Argotario, a serious game that deals with fallacies in everyday argumentation. Argotario is a multilingual, open-source, platform-independent application with strong educational aspects, accessible at www.argotario.net.Comment: EMNLP 2017 demo paper. Source codes: https://github.com/UKPLab/argotari

Simulating activities: Relating motives, deliberation, and attentive coordination

Activities are located behaviors, taking time, conceived as socially meaningful, and usually involving interaction with tools and the environment. In modeling human cognition as a form of problem solving (goal-directed search and operator sequencing), cognitive science researchers have not adequately studied “off-task” activities (e.g., waiting), non-intellectual motives (e.g., hunger), sustaining a goal state (e.g., playful interaction), and coupled perceptual-motor dynamics (e.g., following someone). These aspects of human behavior have been considered in bits and pieces in past research, identified as scripts, human factors, behavior settings, ensemble, flow experience, and situated action. More broadly, activity theory provides a comprehensive framework relating motives, goals, and operations. This paper ties these ideas together, using examples from work life in a Canadian High Arctic research station. The emphasis is on simulating human behavior as it naturally occurs, such that “working” is understood as an aspect of living. The result is a synthesis of previously unrelated analytic perspectives and a broader appreciation of the nature of human cognition. Simulating activities in this comprehensive way is useful for understanding work practice, promoting learning, and designing better tools, including human-robot systems