Gamification: Game-based Learning / Serious Games and 21st Century Soft Skill Development in Nursing Education

This study examined the development of 21st century skills through gamification, game-based learning (GBL), and serious games in nursing education in institutions of higher education in the United States. This paper reviews the history of gamification in nursing pedagogy through three domains of research. It includes an overview of research related to the development and implementation of gamification, GBL, and serious games in nursing education as well as the impact on the development of 21st century skills in digital natives. The focus was on the historical literature related to gamification, GBL, and serious games at institutions of higher education in nursing education to identify and analysis occurrences of 21st century skill development in historical research. Results were obtained through qualitative content analysis through the MAXQAD qualitative software program. Overall, the findings supported the use of gamification, GBL, and serious games in nursing education contributed to the development of 21st century skills among nursing students at institutions of higher education in the United States

Computers in Secondary Schools: Educational Games

This entry introduces educational games in secondary schools. Educational games include three main types of educational activities with a playful learning intention supported by digital technologies: educational serious games, educational gamification, and learning through game creation. Educational serious games are digital games that support learning objectives. Gamification is defined as the use of "game design elements and game thinking in a non-gaming context" (Deterding et al. 2011, p. 13). Educational gamification is not developed through a digital game but includes game elements for supporting the learning objectives. Learning through game creation is focused on the process of designing and creating a prototype of a game to support a learning process related to the game creation process or the knowledge mobilized through the game creation process. Four modalities of educational games in secondary education are introduced in this entry to describe educational games in secondary education: educational purpose of entertainment games, serious games, gamification, and game design

Tailored gamification and serious game framework based on fuzzy logic for saving energy in connected thermostats

Connected thermostats (CTs) often save less energy than predicted because consumers may not know how to use them and may not be engaged in saving energy. Additionally, several models perform contrary to consumers’ expectations and are thus not used the way they are intended to. As a result, CTs save less energy and are underused in households. This paper reviews aspects of gamification and serious games focused on engaging consumers. A gamification and serious games framework is proposed for saving energy that is tailored by a fuzzy logic system to motivate connected thermostat consumers. This intelligent gamification framework can be used to customize the gamification and serious game strategy to each consumer so that fuzzy logic systems can be adapted according to the requirements of each consumer. The framework is designed to teach, engage, and motivate consumers while helping them save electrical energy when using their thermostats. It is described the proposed framework as well as a mockup that can be run on a cellphone. Although this framework is designed to be implemented in CTs, it can be translated to their energy devices in smart homes

Integrating Open Educational Resources to Foster Serious Games and Gamification Design Principles

This paper presents aspects of the design, development and integration of open educational resources (OERs) on serious games design principles and gamification to foster good practices among faculty members of Higher Educational Institutions and other interested educators. The paper presents the methodology followed for the design and integration of OERs in this topic. The resulting modules are delivered through a synchronous e-learning platform and consist of thematic lectures, a variety of asynchronous tools for communication and support integration of OERs, serious games and gamification practices. Through its pilot implementation, learners became aware of aligning educational objectives to methodological principles and relevant tools using existing platforms, serious games and gamification aspects; they accessed videos and animations and they played games that let them realize the potentials of serious games in formal education or other learning contexts. Some preliminary results on their assessment are included

Conceptual Ambiguity Surrounding Gamification and Serious Games in Health Care: Literature Review and Development of Game-Based Intervention Reporting Guidelines (GAMING)

Background: In health care, the use of game-based interventions to increase motivation, engagement, and overall sustainability of health behaviors is steadily becoming more common. The most prevalent types of game-based interventions in health care research are gamification and serious games. Various researchers have discussed substantial conceptual differences between these 2 concepts, supported by empirical studies showing differences in the effects on specific health behaviors. However, researchers also frequently report cases in which terms related to these 2 concepts are used ambiguously or even interchangeably. It remains unclear to what extent existing health care research explicitly distinguishes between gamification and serious games and whether it draws on existing conceptual considerations to do so. Objective: This study aims to address this lack of knowledge by capturing the current state of conceptualizations of gamification and serious games in health care research. Furthermore, we aim to provide tools for researchers to disambiguate the reporting of game-based interventions. Methods: We used a 2-step research approach. First, we conducted a systematic literature review of 206 studies, published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research and its sister journals, containing terms related to gamification, serious games, or both. We analyzed their conceptualizations of gamification and serious games, as well as the distinctions between the two concepts. Second, based on the literature review findings, we developed a set of guidelines for researchers reporting on game-based interventions and evaluated them with a group of 9 experts from the field. Results: Our results show that less than half of the concept mentions are accompanied by an explicit definition. To distinguish between the 2 concepts, we identified four common approaches: implicit distinction, synonymous use of terms, serious games as a type of gamified system, and distinction based on the full game dimension. Our Game-Based Intervention Reporting Guidelines (GAMING) consist of 25 items grouped into four topics: conceptual focus, contribution, mindfulness about related concepts, and individual concept definitions. Conclusions: Conceptualizations of gamification and serious games in health care literature are strongly heterogeneous, leading to conceptual ambiguity. Following the GAMING can support authors in rigorous reporting on study results of game-based interventions

Gamification to Engage Manufacturers with Servitization

Servitization can include many kinds of processes and outcomes depending upon the contexts in which it occurs. This means that servitization is difficult to model accurately in simulations. Games, on the other hand, prioritize the provision of engaging experiences for participants over modelling realistic processes, while Serious Games can combine elements of both games and simulations. Gamification is a more recent term than either ‘simulation’ or ‘serious game’ that has been retrospectively used to describe the process of combining game elements with simulation models to create serious games. As the knowledge base of servitization is quite broad, and specific processes of transformation have yet to be verified, serious games and gamification may be more suited to engaging manufacturers with servitization than simulations. Having co-created several gamified software applications based on servitization, we discuss our findings in relation to this process

Gamification:using gaming mechanics to promote a business

The use of digital games and gamification has demonstrable potential to improve many aspects of how businesses provide training to staff, operate, and communicate with consumers. However, a need still exists for the benefits and potential of adopting games and gamification be effectively communicated to decision-makers across sectors. This article provides a structured review of existing literature on the use of games in the business sector, seeking to consolidate findings to address research questions regarding their perception, proven efficacy, and identify key areas for future work. The findings consolidate evidence showing serious games can have a positive and valuable impact in multiple areas of a business, including training, decision-support, and consumer outreach. They also highlight the challenges and pitfalls of applying serious games and gamification principles within a business context, and discuss the implications of development and evaluation methodologies on the success of a game-based solution

Empowering vulnerable people with serious games and gamification

Although many people will associate games with entertainment and leisure, games can also aim more serious purposes, such as training or education. Games with such goals are called serious games. In addition, gamification means that a (serious) task is enhanced with game elements. Examples of serious games and gamification can be seen in many aspects of daily life. Loyalty programs of stores, educational games in schools, fitness wearables and their gamified applications, rehabilitation games, and so on. In this dissertation, the focus is on a specific domain in which serious games and gamification can create societal benefit, namely by using them to empower vulnerable target groups. In the first part of this dissertation, a literature review is performed to understand the domain of serious games and gamification for vulnerable target groups. Based on this review, research gaps can be identified. Moreover, the review resulted in a taxonomy that is used throughout the dissertation to classify different games and applications. In the following parts of the dissertation, projects addressing two different target groups and in total three vulnerabilities are discussed. The first target group is older adults, who are vulnerable in different ways. In this dissertation, safety risks for doorstep scams and health risks through malnutrition are addressed. The first vulnerability is addressed by a serious game using interactive scenarios of doorstep scams. A diet tracking system that was used to support participants in a diet trial addressed the latter vulnerability. The second target group is young adults, which is an age group with a vulnerable mental well-being. The last part of this dissertation aims to study how gamification can be used to enhance self-compassion among young adults via an online 6-weeks training program, to increase their resilience in the face of mental well-being difficulties. Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies can be used to personalize and adapt the experience of a game to users. Tone of voice analysis was used to influence the progression in scenarios of the serious game about doorstep scams, and it gave players the possibility to assess the assertiveness of their voice. Machine learning algorithms were used to create personalized meal recommendations that can be used to improve the user experience of the diet tracking system for older adults. These algorithms base their recommendations on information about the historical intake of users to suggest meals and to additional items during meal editing. This makes the process of registering a meal less time-consuming. Sentiment analysis is used to adapt responses of the system in an exercise from the self-compassion training program. In addition, a topic detection algorithm was designed to assign one topic from a predefined set of topics to a note by a user of the training program. With this information, users can choose different types of situations to use in the exercises: frequently or rarely discussed topics. Aside from those techniques, knowledge representation is used in all projects, which is important for serious games/gamified applications since they are often based on expert and/or domain knowledge. This dissertation contributes to understanding the domain of serious games and gamification to empower vulnerable groups. The work also contributes to the research on the development of applications within that domain. On top of that, it contributes to understanding how AI techniques can be used to offer (personalized) features that enrich serious games or gamified applications. Finally, for each of the project centered parts, the results that are found in those parts contribute to the research in those specific fields

Review of Serious Gaming Applications in Humanitarian Operations and Disaster Risk Management: State-of-the-Art and Future Directions for Research

Recent years have seen growth of interest in so-called ‘serious game’ applications in a number offields including humanitarian operations and disaster risk management. By integrating an element of ‘gamification’, i.e. the use of game-based features to encourage engagement and learning on broad range of topics, serious games applied in the area of humanitarian operations have sought to engage various stakeholders to raise awareness and collaboratively work on problem solving. This presentation reviews the various concepts related to gamification and serious games in general, identifying their strengths and limitations as well as what makes them unique as opposed to more conventional instruction and stakeholder engagement tools. The study then reviews the recent applications of serious games in the field of humanitarian operations and disaster risk management and identities current research trends, major findings, and important knowledge gaps for further research. This presentation will be of interest to wide policy and academic audiences interested in the topic of novel stakeholder engagement methods