Differences in prosocial and agonistic behaviours expressed by Colombian and Spanish children and youth during a game session

We investigated behavioural patterns of school subjects from Colombia and Tenerife (Spain) of 10–12, 13–14 and 15–17 years old (150 per age group), during a crossed puzzle game. We video-recorded all sessions, elaborated an ethogram and classified behavioural patterns within functional categories (Empathy, Help Organizing, Agonistic, Cooperation, Selfishness and Tension-Distension); their frequencies were analyzed by Generalized Linear Mixed Models (GLMM). Results showed significant differences between countries in Help Organizing, Cooperation, Agonistic and Tension-Distension; the same categories except Cooperation differed between age ranges, but no category significantly differed between sexes. GLMM of factor scores from a principal component analysis applied to behavioural categories showed subjects from Colombian schools had significantly lower PC1 factor scores (Empathy, Selfishness and Tension-Distension) than those from Tenerife; the contrary occurred for PC2 (Help Organizing and Cooperation) and no significant difference was found for PC3 (Agonistic and Selfishness). We discuss several potential causes of the differences found.

Gamification as an Effective Learning Tool to Increase Learner Motivation and Engagement

In this paper, we reflect on the implementation of a gamified application for helping employee learn important facts about their training program for level up capability. Gamification of education is a developing approach for increasing learners’ motivation and engagement by incorporating game design elements in educational environments. With the growing popularity of gamification and yet mixed success of its application in educational contexts, the current review is aiming to shed a more realistic light on the research in this field by focusing on empirical evidence rather than on potentialities, beliefs or preferences. Gamification can be used on all the types of education. Be it student or to the employee training. There are no boundaries how the gamification in education can be made. Gamification the educational process can be a real challenge because in the making of the process one must have a balance between the fun in the game session but also got the knowledge from the study that is intended. The game cannot be more addicted than educating the student that use the feature. But the game cannot to be boring either and make the student and employee more reluctant to study.There is a direct link between increased motivation and higher levels of engagement when the gamification intervention is introduced. This is a application review on gamification motivation and engagement learner.

Digital boardgame approach to review and reinforcement of complex medical subjects: An exploratory study into anatomical education. (Preprint)

BACKGROUND Serious games have the potential to resolve educational problems faced by medical students, such as insufficient rehearsal due to boredom and lack of motivation. However, serious games relatively novel concepts to science and many genres of games common in recreation remain under-researched in the literature. Boardgames are one such genre that, despite their potential, affordability, and flexibility, are rarely designed for medical students and little is known of student perceptions of them, and their compatibility with rehearsal. OBJECTIVE The study sought to elicit, via an exploratory study, student perceptions of a digital serious boardgame specifically designed for the gamified rehearsal of complex medical subjects, with the chosen topic of anatomy. METHODS A digital serious boardgame, based off Self-Determination Theory was first designed and developed to facilitate rehearsal of anatomy. Student subjects were then recruited to partake in the intervention and split in three teams of two per game session, after which they were administered the Flow Short Scale (7-point Likert scale from 1 [Not at all] to 7 [Very much]) survey, and then a focus group discussion to elicit their perceptions on the game. RESULTS A total of 12 undergraduate Year 2 medical students from the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine participated in the study. Flow Short Scale results indicated a moderate level of overall flow (M = 4.94, SD = 1.07) via the subdomains of fluency (M = 4.77, SD = 1.13) and absorption (M = 5.21, SD = 1.1). Students perceived the game as fun, enjoyable, engaging, and appropriate for a rehearsal tool that alleviated the monotony of traditional methods of rehearsal. CONCLUSIONS Digital boardgame-based rehearsal tool, when based off Self-Determination Theory, appear to suitable for gamified rehearsal in a fun and enjoyable environment due to its facilitation of intrinsic motivation in its players.

Serious board games: modding existing games for collaborative ideation processes

Modern board games are booming, exploring new design elements, and providing dynamics that can support unique experiences. Serious game approaches can benefit from these insights and novelty. With the appropriate adaptation, modern board games may become flexible and cheaper ways to use and prototype serious games. Exploring these games and player engagement can support digital game design. Digital game designers may learn from modern board games to playtest player engagement and build prototypes for their serious games. This paper describes an experience with several adapted modern board games aiming to create a “Light Collaborative Ideation Process”, supported by the “Engagement Design” model and “The big five personality traits”. The game session objectives concerned fostering collaboration and ideation among participants in an informal meeting. The session successfully supported the potential of using modern board games, although showing the limitations and future developments required to benefit from the modding approach.

Becoming the Unseen Helmsman - Game facilitator competencies for novice, experienced, and non-game facilitators

Background. To facilitate game sessions for purposes beyond mere entertainment a facilitator needs to act like an ‘Unseen Helmsman’: steering their ship clear from rocks and storms without the players in the ship realizing. Previous work laid down a competency model for game facilitation. It reviewed several competency models for facilitators of generic (non-game) group sessions. Since no such model comprehensively provided guidelines to facilitate game sessions in particular, a new competency model was proposed using a bottom-up approach with the participation of game facilitation experts. The question remains what lessons may be drawn from this model. Methods. This contribution elaborates on the competency model for game facilitation and draws lessons from it. Thus it aims to empower both novice and experienced game facilitators to become an Unseen Helmsman. Also, it presents learnings for people who are experienced in facilitating groups in general, but who are new to facilitating game sessions. Conclusions. First, lessons for novice game facilitators include familiarising themselves with the core notions of the competency model: the characteristics of a complex systems game (session), and the attitudes, knowledge, and skills for successful game facilitation. Second, experienced game facilitators may learn from existing competency models for generic (non-game) group facilitation. Third, facilitators of generic (non-game) group sessions are encouraged to study the characteristics of game sessions in addition to the specific competencies contained in the competency model for game facilitators.

Online Gambling Activity, Pay-to-Win Payments, Motivation to Gamble and Coping Strategies as Predictors of Gambling Disorder Among e-sports Bettors

Research on esports activity usually captures it from the perspective of involvement in gaming. This study presents the results of the first research in Poland (N = 438) on esports betting (ESB). ESB is compared to other forms of e-gambling and involvement in pay-to-win games. The aim was to build a predictive model of gambling disorder among people betting on esports. A predictive model of gambling disorder based on ordinal regression was built, including sociodemographic variables, involvement in esports betting, involvement in other Internet activities connected to ESB, as well as psychological variables—motivation to gamble and coping strategies. The results showed that gambling disorder among esports bettors is associated with time spent on one game session, placing other forms of online gambling bets once a week or more often, and paying in pay-to-win games. Gambling disorder was also predicted by escape coping strategies and lower engaged strategies as well as financial and coping motivation to bet on esports results. The results show the crucial role of psychological factors (motivation, coping) in the development of esports betting addiction. Esports betting is an activity associated with both gambling and gaming—involvement in both activities explains the development of ESB addiction. There is a need for further research focused on the specificity of esports betting behavior to discover the direction of links among gaming, gambling, and esports gambling.

An Overview of Multi Agent System for Sports and Healthcare Industry

Players more often engage in excessive physical activities during exercise session as well as in the game session because results of the games highly depend over the performance of participants that can be degraded due to various factors current health status, injury history, exercise types and duration, training and game experience. A Multi agent System can analyze all these factors and the overall performance of the participants can be improved using feedback. In this paper, the role of the Artificial Intelligence, Expert System, Machine/Deep Learning/Neural Networks in the sports and healthcare industry will be explored.

Prospective study on a fast-track training in psychiatry for medical students: the psychiatric hat game

Background While medical students are losing interest in lectures in favor of other educational materials, many studies suggest the benefit of active learning, combined with gamified educational tools. The authors developed a psychiatric adaptation of the « Hat Game ». It was hypothesised that this game would increase both knowledge and motivation in medical students toward psychiatric semiology. The aim of the study was to assess the benefit of a Psychiatric Hat Game session for learning psychiatric symptoms in third-year medical students. Student performance was also evaluated at 3 months. Methods This gamified fast-track training consists of two teams and each team has to guess as many psychiatric semiology terms as possible using different techniques (i.e. speech, mime). The study involved a pre- and post-evaluation of knowledge (Multiple Choice Questions) and a satisfaction survey. Baseline, post-immediate, and three-months scores were compared by using Friedman analysis for paired samples. Comparisons of mean scores at two different times were performed by using Wilcoxon test for paired samples. Results One hundred and sixty-six students were proposed to take part in the study. Among them 129 completed the whole program (response rate = 77.7%). Mean scores measured at the three points in time were significantly different (p < 0.001, N = 129). Knowledge mean scores were significantly higher after the game than before (+ 28.6%, p < 0.001). Improvement was maintained 3 months after the game (+ 18.9%, p < 0.001). Satisfaction survey items highlighted that students enjoyed and would recommend this type of gamified training. Conclusions The Psychiatric Hat Game improved knowledge of psychiatric semiology in medical students. Results suggest that it is a promising and efficient tool to playfully teach medical semiology, with transferable features, utility and acceptability from one medical field to another. This study contributes to the growing body of knowledge advocating for serious games and gamified training in medical education.

Prospective study on a fast-track training in psychiatry for medical students: The Psychiatric Hat Game

Background: While medical students are losing interest in lectures in favor of other educational materials, many studies suggest the benefit of active learning, combined with gamified educational tools. The authors developed a psychiatric adaptation of the « Hat Game ». It was hypothesised that this game would increase both knowledge and motivation in medical students toward psychiatric semiology. The aim of the study was to assess the benefit of a Psychiatric Hat Game session for learning psychiatric symptoms in third-year medical students. Student performance was also evaluated at 3 months. Methods: This gamified fast-track training consists of two teams and each team has to guess as many psychiatric semiology terms as possible using different techniques (i.e. speech, mime). The study involved a pre- and post-evaluation of knowledge (Multiple Choice Questions) and a satisfaction survey. Baseline, post-immediate, and three-months scores were compared by using Friedman analysis for paired samples. Comparisons of mean scores at two different times were performed by using Wilcoxon test for paired samples. Results: One hundred and sixty-six students were proposed to take part in the study. Among them 129 completed the whole program (response rate = 77.7%). Mean scores measured at the three points in time were significantly different (p < 0.001, N = 129). Knowledge mean scores were significantly higher after the game than before (+ 28.6%, p < 0.001). Improvement was maintained three months after the game (+ 18.9%, p < 0.001). Satisfaction survey items highlighted that students enjoyed and would recommend this type of gamified training. Conclusions: The Psychiatric Hat Game improved knowledge of psychiatric semiology in medical students. Results suggest that it is a promising and efficient tool to playfully teach medical semiology, with transferable features, utility and acceptability from one medical field to another. This study contributes to the growing body of knowledge advocating for serious games and gamified training in medical education.

Prospective study on a fast-track training in psychiatry for medical students: The Psychiatric Hat Game

Background: While medical students are losing interest in lectures in favor of other educational materials, many studies suggest the benefit of active learning, combined with gamified educational tools. The authors developed a psychiatric adaptation of the « Hat Game ». It was hypothesised that this game would increase both knowledge and motivation in medical students toward psychiatric semiology. The aim of the study was to assess the benefit of a Psychiatric Hat Game session for learning psychiatric symptoms in third-year medical students. Student performance was also evaluated at 3 months.Methods: This gamified fast-track training consisted of two teams and each team must guess as many psychiatric semiology terms as possible using different techniques (i.e. speech, mime). The study involved a pre- and post-evaluation of knowledge (Multiple Choice Questions) and a satisfaction survey. Baseline, post-immediate, and three-months scores were compared by using Friedman analysis for paired samples. Comparisons of mean scores at two different times were performed by using Wilcoxon test for paired samples.Results: Knowledge mean scores were significantly higher after the game than before (+ 28.6%, p < 0.001). Improvement was maintained three months after the game (+ 18.9%, p < 0.001). Satisfaction survey items highlighted that students enjoyed and would recommend this type of gamified training.Conclusions: The Psychiatric Hat Game improved knowledge of psychiatric semiology in medical students. Results suggest that it is a promising and efficient tool to playfully teach medical semiology, with transferable features, utility and acceptability from one medical field to another. This study contributes to the growing body of knowledge advocating for serious games and gamified training in medical education.