Video Games and Attitude Change: A Meta-analysis

Despite extensive research on attitudes and a rapid growth of the video game market, there is currently no meta-analysis mapping the link between narrative video games and attitude change. Here, we present such meta-analysis. The findings suggest that narrative video games affect players’ attitudes towards the topics depicted in games. This effect was present in studies focused on changes in both implicit (g = 0.36, k = 18) and explicit attitudes (g = 0.24, k = 101), with longer intervention duration and game mechanics such as stereotyping and meaningful feedback resulting in larger implicit attitude change. Regarding the robustness of the underlying evidence, half of the included studies were judged to be at high risk of bias. On the other hand, the impact of publication bias in this literature was found to be negligible. Altogether, this meta-analysis provides evidence that video games shape how we think about events they represent.

Game Mechanics Supporting a Learning and Playful Experience in Educational Escape Games

Globally, educators are striving to find innovative ways of engaging their learners and ensuring that they accomplish the desired learning outcomes. Among the various game-based learning approaches that have come up in recent years, escape games are being widely used in a variety of learning contexts. As an entertainment activity, these games seem to be popular among players of all ages and backgrounds. This chapter introduces escape games and provides a literature review on their possible benefits and limitations. The game mechanics and learning mechanics that enable these games to be a potentially playful activity for teaching and learning will be discussed. This chapter provides educators and researchers with the required information backed by various studies to consider the integration of educational escape games with their current learning methods.

A Review of Educational Games for Teaching Programming to Primary School Students

In recent years, several educational games for learning programming have been developed with promising results. The main purpose of this chapter is to present 22 educational games or platforms that aim to cultivate computational thinking through teaching computer programming concepts to primary school students. A short description of each game followed by a comparative analysis of both their game mechanics and their educational aspects is presented. Additionally, less typical functionalities such as online classrooms, the support for learning analytics, and the creation of new levels are analyzed. This chapter could be useful for game designers and IT teachers who would like to use a game-based approach in the teaching process.

Gamification and Game-Based Learning

Teachers can use game mechanics in a non-game environment (gamification), or they can consider playing a game as an option to learn content. In the first case, adding elements inspired by games to the classroom environment allows teachers to create a motivating atmosphere for the learning of social sciences, geography, and history. The second case is directly related to games that “teach” content through making decisions and observation of consequences. With a focus on elements, benefits, strategies, and some of the most important resources to introduce gamification and game-based learning in social science education, the authors highlight student motivation and learning of content and skills. Although gamification is not a new concept, it can be considered that the technological development and the recognition of its didactic possibilities have extended the educational experiences in a new way, contributing significantly to education.

Gamification of Middle School Mathematics and Science

Gamification, defined as the process of game-thinking and game mechanics to engage users and solve problems, is a fairly new and rapidly growing field. Literature suggests that gamification can contribute to develop higher order cognitive abilities such as problem solving and critical thinking skills. Using gamification in non-game situations enhances students' understanding and contributes on conceptual learning, especially in mathematics and science. This chapter introduces the concept of gamification in terms of its pedagogical underpinnings, integration of gamification into educational environments (with a focus on mathematics and science), a sample application of gamification in science content, and the future trends about possible directions of uses of gamification.

A Protocol for Reviewing Off-the-Shelf Games to Inform the Development of New Educational Games

This chapter shares a protocol for reviewing games and documents the process in which it was used by an educational game design team for evaluating existing games to inform the design and development of new games for early algebra. While the design team has used their own learning games design model to develop several games—all of which included some kind of immersive learning and review activity—there has been no documentation provided on the specific processes used to review games as part of that immersion. Observations offer structured means for assessing existing games in a particular space and are thus valuable to identify how best to pursue the alignment of learning objectives with teaching content and game mechanics in the development of educational games.

A Primer on Gamification Standardization

Computer science education has always been a challenging topic for both sides of the trench: educators and learners. Nowadays, with the pandemic state that we are facing, these challenges are even greater, leading educators to look for strategies that promote effective virtual learning. One of such strategies includes the use of game mechanics to improve student engagement and motivation. This design strategy is typically called gamification. Nowadays, gamification is being seen as the solution to solve most of the issues related to demotivation, complexity, or tedious tasks. In the latest years, we saw thousands of educational applications being created with gamification in mind. Nevertheless, this has been an unsustainable growth with ad hoc designs and implementations of educational gamified applications, hampering interoperability and the reuse of good practices. This chapter presents a systematic study on gamification standardization aiming to characterize the status of the field, namely describing existing frameworks, languages, services, and platforms.

Ludotopia. O granicy świata gry

The essay presents an overview of the possible meanings and applications of the newly-coined term ‘ludotopia’, i.e. a “dialectical entanglement of game and space” – which challenges the boundaries of two neighbouring worlds: storyworld and gameworld. Seeking to trace the limitations of a thus defined gaming space, the author proceeds by reflecting upon the end of the game, or, more precisely, the endgame, in order to reconcile it with a notion of horismós (ὁρισμός) popular in more hermeneutically aligned video game studies. While doing so, the paper delivers an analysis of Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey showing three distinct stages in which a ludotopia can be opened towards more advanced world-building: (1) exploration and map reveal; (2) synchronisation of intelligible tags; and (3) renewal of narrative motivation. Thanks to a world-centered approach to the interpreted video game, the essay addresses how players inhabit, traverse, explore, and understand the surrounding ludic reality, rather than focusing on video game mechanics or procedures that affect their gameplay. In the end, a precise distinction between the storyworld and gameworld is introduced in order to reevaluate the ways both terms overlap with the aforementioned interpretation of ludotopia.