Serious Assessments in Serious Games

Author(s):  
Robert Hubal ◽  
Jamie Pina

In the past decade the serious games initiative has produced a number of games being used today as adjuncts to institutional training. Many of the games produced through the serious games initiative do not incorporate adaptive assessment to assure the acquisition of real-world skills from virtual training. Detailed performance assessment techniques are often lacking. Successful performance assessment in virtual training requires that students are placed into multiple simulated contexts and are challenged with different tasks to perform under various conditions, to specified standards. The aggregate of training situations must adequately cover the space of real-world situations. This article discusses important concepts related to virtual training performance assessment including critical tasks, performance criteria, forward recommendation, errors of commission, red screen alerts, reusable competency definitions, ill-structured domains, violent domains, and other game design templating. By integrating these concepts into serious game design, trainers can develop sufficiently varying simulated tasks to ensure that serious games meet real-world adaptive needs.

Author(s):  
Christian Sebastian Loh ◽  
Jae Hwan Byun

Game Modification, or Modding, is a unique and valuable way of learning with digital games as well as a means to earn beginners’ stripes in the game design world. Beginners who emerge successful from a modding experience, having created at least one playable game, have stepped out of the comfort zone of being gamers, and shown the courage in taking on a real-world adventure. Their rewards are altogether different from having beaten the toughest boss in a game. A team of modders share a unique bond with one another as comrades, as members of a fellowship. It is an experience found, not in the retelling of ancient epics by others, but in the making of one’s own adventure. This chapter is an account of one such undertaking that shows the potential and value of game modding for education, Readers who are contemplating the use of game modding for creating serious games should find the chapter useful.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Alexander Garske ◽  
Matthew Dyson ◽  
Sigrid Dupan ◽  
Graham Morgan ◽  
Kianoush Nazarpour

UNSTRUCTURED Serious games show a lot of potential for use in movement rehabilitation, for example, after a stroke, injury to the spinal cord or limb loss. However, the diverse nature of this research leads to diversity both in the background of the researchers and in the approaches of their investigation. Our close examination and categorization of virtual training for upper limb prosthetic rehabilitation affiliated the researchers to two broad approaches (1) focusing on the game design aspects to increase engagement and muscle training and (2) concentrating on an accurate representation of prosthetic training tasks, to induce task-specific skill transfer. Previous studies indicate muscle training alone does not lead to improved prosthetic control without a transfer enabling task structure. However, literature shows an incredible surge in the number of game-based prosthetic training tools recently, focusing on the engagement without heeding the importance of transfer. This influx appears to have been strongly influenced by the availability of both soft- and hardware, specifically the launch of a commercially available acquisition device and freely available high profile game development engines. We finally share our perspective on the current trends and progress of serious games for prosthetic training.


2013 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yvonne Pecena ◽  
Doris Keye ◽  
Kristin Conzelmann ◽  
Dietrich Grasshoff ◽  
Peter Maschke ◽  
...  

The job of an air traffic controller (ATCO) is very specific and demanding. The assessment of potential suitable candidates requires a customized and efficient selection procedure. The German Aerospace Center DLR conducts a highly selective, multiple-stage selection procedure for ab initio ATCO applicants for the German Air Navigation Service Provider DFS. Successful applicants start their training with a training phase at the DFS Academy and then continue with a unit training phase in live traffic. ATCO validity studies are scarcely reported in the international scientific literature and have mainly been conducted in a military context with only small and male samples. This validation study encompasses the data from 430 DFS ATCO trainees, starting with candidate selection and extending to the completion of their training. Validity analyses involved the prediction of training success and several training performance criteria derived from initial training. The final training success rate of about 79% was highly satisfactory and higher than that of other countries. The findings demonstrated that all stages of the selection procedure showed predictive validity toward training performance. Among the best predictors were scores measuring attention and multitasking ability, and ratings on general motivation from the interview.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlos Alberto Catalina Ortega ◽  
Svjetlana Kolić-Vehovec ◽  
Barbara Rončević Zubković ◽  
Sanja Smojver-Ažić ◽  
Tamara Martinac Dorčić

UNSTRUCTURED Objectives: The main purpose of the paper is to define a new methodology that allows the design of Serious Games that promote a behavioural change. The methodology is based on the Intervention Mapping Protocol (IMP) to define all the information and interventions and Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA) to promote the behaviour change. Materials and methods: The methodology is based on the experience of game designers and psychologies within the eConfidence H2020 research project in which a new methodology was designed and implemented in two serious games. The game development methodology is described in six steps to be followed, with the psychological perspective integrated with the game design. Both games were tested in 10 schools with a pre and post-test for the data analysis. Results: Both games developed within the methodology present relevant findings on the change of behaviour of the users. Additionally, the proposed metric integrated allows a database improvement of the games to get better results. Conclusion: New methodology for design and study effectiveness of Serious Games that promote behavioural changes, was designed and integrated into two serious games that demonstrate changes in the users. The methodology could help other teams in the work of design and assess the effectiveness of a Serious Game for behavioural change.


Author(s):  
Adam Bryant Miller ◽  
Maya Massing-Schaffer ◽  
Sarah Owens ◽  
Mitchell J. Prinstein

Nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) is direct, intentional harm to one’s own body performed without the intent to die. NSSI has a marked developmental onset reaching peak prevalence in adolescence. NSSI is present in the context of multiple psychological disorders and stands alone as a separate phenomenon. Research has accumulated over the past several decades regarding the course of NSSI. While great advances have been made, there remains a distinct need for basic and applied research in the area of NSSI. This chapter reviews prevalence rates, correlates and risk factors, and leading theories of NSSI. Further, it reviews assessment techniques and provides recommendations. Then, it presents the latest evidence-based treatment recommendations and provides a case example. Finally, cutting edge research and the next frontier of research in this area are outlined.


2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 291-300
Author(s):  
Zhenyu Gao ◽  
Yixing Li ◽  
Zhengxin Wang

AbstractThe recently concluded 2019 World Swimming Championships was another major swimming competition that witnessed some great progresses achieved by human athletes in many events. However, some world records created 10 years ago back in the era of high-tech swimsuits remained untouched. With the advancements in technical skills and training methods in the past decade, the inability to break those world records is a strong indication that records with the swimsuit bonus cannot reflect the real progressions achieved by human athletes in history. Many swimming professionals and enthusiasts are eager to know a measure of the real world records had the high-tech swimsuits never been allowed. This paper attempts to restore the real world records in Men’s swimming without high-tech swimsuits by integrating various advanced methods in probabilistic modeling and optimization. Through the modeling and separation of swimsuit bias, natural improvement, and athletes’ intrinsic performance, the result of this paper provides the optimal estimates and the 95% confidence intervals for the real world records. The proposed methodology can also be applied to a variety of similar studies with multi-factor considerations.


2002 ◽  
Vol 2 (4-5) ◽  
pp. 423-424 ◽  
Author(s):  
MAURICE BRUYNOOGHE ◽  
KUNG-KIU LAU

This special issue marks the tenth anniversary of the LOPSTR workshop. LOPSTR started in 1991 as a workshop on Logic Program Synthesis and Transformation, but later it broadened its scope to logic-based Program Development in general.The motivating force behind LOPSTR has been a belief that declarative paradigms such as logic programming are better suited to program development tasks than traditional non-declarative ones such as the imperative paradigm. Specification, synthesis, transformation or specialisation, analysis, verification and debugging can all be given logical foundations, thus providing a unifying framework for the whole development process.In the past ten years or so, such a theoretical framework has indeed begun to emerge. Even tools have been implemented for analysis, verification and specialisation. However, it is fair to say that so far the focus has largely been on programming-in-the-small. So the future challenge is to apply or extend these techniques to programming-in-the-large, in order to tackle software engineering in the real world.


1976 ◽  
Vol 50 (4) ◽  
pp. 503-513 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Craig West

Students of the origins and accomplishments of government regulation of economic activity have open suspected that the laws on which regulation is based were addressed to problems and conditions of the past that no longer prevailed, or — what is worse — assumptions about the “real world” that are highly unrealistic. This is Professor West's main conclusion about the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, especially as regards its discount rate and international exchange policies.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kim Martinez ◽  
Maria Isabel Menéndez-Menéndez ◽  
David Checa ◽  
Andres Bustillo

BACKGROUND The design of Virtual Reality Serious Games (VR-SG) is a subject still developing. One of its open developments is the definition of metrics to evaluate the fun and learning result. In this way, weaknesses and strengths in the design of serious games can be found for future works in this research field. OBJECTIVE This paper aims to create a metric that can be used to rate the gameplay of VR-SG. This metric’s novelty allows to evaluate the different fun and learning features and give them a quantitative rating. A study case shows the capability of implementing this evaluation to identify strengths and weaknesses of VR-SGs. METHODS The new VR-SG metric is developed on the basis of the Mechanics, Dynamics and Aesthetic (MDA) framework but including User Experience (UX) elements and adapting them to VR-SG. This metric includes 1) UX aspects: VR-headsets, training tutorials and interactive adaptions to avoid VR inconveniences; and 2) MDA aspects: exclusive VR audiovisual elements and its aesthetics interactions. RESULTS The selected indie serious game is Hellblade, developed to raise awareness about the difficulties of people suffering from psychosis with two versions: one for 2D-screens and the other for VR devices. The comparison of metric´s scores for both versions shows: 1) some VR dynamics increase the gameplay impact and therefore, the educational capacity; and 2) flaws in game design where the scores drop down. Some of these flaws are: reduced number of levels, missions and items, lack of a tutorial to enhance usability and lack of strategies and rewards in the long-term to increase motivation. CONCLUSIONS This metric allows to identify the elements of the gameplay and UX that are necessary to learn in VR experiences. The study case shows this research is useful to evaluate the educational utility of VR-SG. Further works will analyze VR applications to synthetize every game element influencing its intrinsic sensations. CLINICALTRIAL The trials have not been registered, as testing for this metric has not involved people with mental conditions or addressed other medical applications. Hellblade is a commercial video game that anyone can purchase and play. The trials have been carried out to obtain results on the gaming experience of different people in relation to the educational purpose of raising awareness of psychosis.


2021 ◽  
pp. 026638212110619
Author(s):  
Sharon Richardson

During the past two decades, there have been a number of breakthroughs in the fields of data science and artificial intelligence, made possible by advanced machine learning algorithms trained through access to massive volumes of data. However, their adoption and use in real-world applications remains a challenge. This paper posits that a key limitation in making AI applicable has been a failure to modernise the theoretical frameworks needed to evaluate and adopt outcomes. Such a need was anticipated with the arrival of the digital computer in the 1950s but has remained unrealised. This paper reviews how the field of data science emerged and led to rapid breakthroughs in algorithms underpinning research into artificial intelligence. It then discusses the contextual framework now needed to advance the use of AI in real-world decisions that impact human lives and livelihoods.


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