Heuristic Evaluation for Serious Immersive Games and M-instruction

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016. Two fast growing areas for technology-enhanced learning are serious games and mobile instruction (M-instruction or M-Learning). Serious games are ones that are meant to be more than just entertainment. They have a serious use to educate or promote other types of activity. Immersive Games frequently involve many players interacting in a shared rich and complex-perhaps web-based-mixed reality world, where their circumstances will be multi and varied. Their reality may be augmented and often self-composed, as in a user-defined avatar in a virtual world. M-instruction and M-Learning is learning on the move; much of modern computer use is via smart devices, pads, and laptops. People use these devices all over the place and thus it is a natural extension to want to use these devices where they are to learn. This presents a problem if we wish to evaluate the effectiveness of the pedagogic media they are using. We have no way of knowing their situation, circumstance, education background and motivation, or potentially of the customisation of the final software they are using. Getting to the end user itself may also be problematic; these are learning environments that people will dip into at opportune moments. If access to the end user is hard because of location and user self-personalisation, then one solution is to look at the software before it goes out. Heuristic Evaluation allows us to get User Interface (UI) and User Experience (UX) experts to reflect on the software before it is deployed. The effective use of heuristic evaluation with pedagogical software [1] is extended here, with existing Heuristics Evaluation Methods that make the technique applicable to Serious Immersive Games and mobile instruction (M-instruction). We also consider how existing Heuristic Methods may be adopted. The result represents a new way of making this methodology applicable to this new developing area of learning technology

Flexible virtual environments: Gamifying immersive learning

© Springer International Publishing AG 2017. The availability of Virtual Reality (VR) and Virtual Environment (VE) equipment - with the launch of domestic technologies such as the Oculus Rift, Microsoft Hololens and Sony Playstation VR) - offer new ways to enable interactive immersive experiences [16]. The opportunities these create in learning and training applications are immense: but create new challenges . Meanwhile, current virtual learning environments are typically web or app based technologies, sometimes perceived as having little value added from a user perspective beyond improved User Interfaces to access some content [6]. The challenge is how the human computer interaction features of such VE platforms may be used in education in a way that adds value, especially for computer mediated instruction. This paper will outline some of the issues, and opportunities, as well as some of the open questions about how such technologies can be used effectively in a higher education context, along with a proposed framework for embedding a learning engine within a virtual reality or environment system. Three-dimensional technologies: from work-walls, through CAVES to the latest headsets offer new ways to immerse users in computer generated environments. Immersive learning [1] is increasingly common in training applications, and is beginning to make inroads into formal education. The recent rise in such off-the-shelf technologies means that Augmented Learning becomes a realistic mainstream tool [13]. Much of this use is built in game environments using game engines, where these serious games provide learning effects as an intended consequence of playing

Emerging challenges for HCI : enabling effective use of VR in education and training

This chapter considers some of the challenges in providing effective virtual reality (VR) environments for teaching and training, where users are encouraged and enabled to be truly engaged in their learning. One approach is to use inquiry-based learning, linking that to the use of VR as a vehicle for education. This chapter introduces the notion of virtual learning spaces in a more general form and makes the case that a virtual learning space is any online environment where the learner perceives that they are interacting or gaming, and thus can be enabled within a virtual environment. Thus, virtual learning spaces are not limited to bespoke education learning software but can be considered in any context where the user perceives that they are engaging, having fun, and exploring, as can be implemented within a VR platform.Infotainment or gaming is a potential area that we can exploit to improve the effectiveness of training and learning and is particularly relevant within VR learning spaces. This chapter considers both synchronous and asynchronous computer-mediated communication and virtual and immersed virtual reality to illustrate potential virtual learning spaces. The chapter presents some worked illustrations to show how this could be used with the context of teaching Computer Science

Gamification of Education and Learning: Heuristic Elements, Player Types, and Learning Outcomes for Art History Games

The technology of virtual reality (VR) and the gamification of education and learning has had proven educational benefits, especially in secondary education. However, there remains little to no research on the heuristic elements and mechanics that contribute to learning at the postsecondary level of education. Most research conducted has been refined to science programs, but even in these instances, a study of the effects and interests of different demographics has yet to be considered. Given the visual nature of how the discipline of art history has traditionally been taught, there are a number of virtual reality (VR) applications to assist instructors in the field better engage students in immersive environments to provide a more accurate understanding of subjects covered. In order to capitalize on the strengths of the new digital medium, including immersion, engagement, and presence, the end user needs to be considered. This heuristic study investigates the different experiences, preferences, learning styles, and expectations relating to educational gaming of art history students at a private, Midwestern college. Results demonstrate that effective game design and development need consider the target audience to optimize user experience and learning outcomes

State of the art in business games

The use of digital games and gamification has demonstrated potential to improve many aspects of how businesses provide training to staff, and communicate with consumers. However, there is still a need for better understanding of how the adoption of games and gasification would influence the process of decision-making in organisations across different industry. This article provides a structured review of existing literature on the use of games in the business environment, and seeks to consolidate findings to address research questions regarding their perception, proven efficacy, and identifies key areas for future work. The findings highlight that serious games can have positive and effective impacts in multiple areas of a business, including training, decision-support, and consumer outreach. They also emphasise 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

Immersive Learning Research Network

Computer games have now been around for over three decades and the term serious games has been attributed to the use of computer games that are thought to have educational value. Game-based learning (GBL) has been applied in a number of different fields such as medicine, languages and software engineering. Furthermore, serious games can be a very effective as an instructional tool and can assist learning by providing an alternative way of presenting instructions and content on a supplementary level, and can promote student motivation and interest in subject matter resulting in enhanced learning effectiveness. REVLAW (Real and Virtual Reality Law) is a research project that the departments of Law and Computer Science of Westminster University have proposed as a new framework in which law students can explore a real case scenario using Virtual Reality (VR) technology to discover important pieces of evidence from a real-given scenario and make up their mind over the crime case if this is a murder or not. REVLAW integrates the immersion into VR as the perception of being physically present in a non-physical world. The paper presents the prototype framework and the mechanics used to make students focus on the crime case and make the best use of this immersive learning approach

Extending the Activity Theory Based Model for Serious Games Design in Engineering to Integrate Analytics

Serious Games (SG) have been shown to have instructional potential and a number of formal models, frameworks and methodologies have emerged to support their design and analysis. The Activity Theory-based Model of Serious Games (ATMSG) facilitates a systematic and detailed representation of educational SG describing how game elements are connected together to contribute to pedagogical goals. This paper proposes and presents an extension to the ATMSG framework to facilitate the identification, selection and integration of analytics into serious games. A practical example of the approach in use in the analysis and design phase of a SG for engineering is demonstrated

A GRAPH-BASED APPROACH FOR ADAPTIVE SERIOUS GAMES

Traditional education systems are based on the one-size-fits-all approach, which lacks personalization, engagement, and flexibility necessary to meet the diverse needs and learning styles of students. This encouraged researchers to focus on exploring automated, personalized instructional systems to enhance students’ learning experiences. Motivated by this remark, this thesis proposes a personalized instructional system using a graph method to enhance a player’s learning process by preventing frustration and avoiding a monotonous experience. Our system uses a directional graph, called an action graph, for representing solutions to in-game problems based on possible player actions. Through our proposed algorithm, a serious game integrated with our system would both detect player errors and provide personalized assistance to direct a player in the direction of a correct solution. To verify system performance, this research presents comparison testing on a group of students engaging in the game both with and without AI. Students who played the AI-assisted game showed an average 20% decrease in time needed and an average 58% decrease in actions taken to complete the game

A hybrid evaluation approach and guidance for mHealth education applications

© Springer International Publishing AG 2018. Mobile health education applications (MHEAs) are used to support different users. However, although these applications are increasing in number, there is no effective evaluation framework to measure their usability and thus save effort and time for their many user groups. This paper outlines a useful framework for evaluating MHEAs, together with particular evaluation metrics: an efficient hybrid of selected heuristic evaluation (HE) and usability evaluation (UE) factors to enable the determination of the usefulness and usability of MHEAs. We also propose a guidance tool to help stakeholders choose the most suitable MHEA. The outcome of this framework is envisioned as meeting the requirements of different users, in addition to enhancing the development of MHEAs using software engineering approaches by creating new and more effective evaluation techniques. Finally, we present qualitative and quantitative results for the framework when used with MHEAs