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The presented paper examines the deployment of a cost-effective biofeedback system that provides anxiety awareness during online examination activities. Human anxiety is classified by evaluating biosignals related to skin conductance, skin temperature, and heart rate. The first aim of this study is to check the presented system performance. Thus, we test the convergent validity of the system regarding self-report measures of anxiety. Moreover, the system is validated against a commercial tool of anxiety detection. Fifteen (15) postgraduate students took part in the relevant psychometric test. The convergent validity of the system is found to be satisfactory. The second aim of this study is to identify the participant’s personality dimensions according to Technology Readiness Index (TRI) which affects their academic performance and their real-time anxiety, as provided by the biofeedback device, during academic examinations. Thirty-five (35) postgraduate students, who were taking examinations in the form of synchronous online tests in the classroom for one of their lessons, took part in this stage of the research. The examined relationships are presented via a path model showing mainly that insecurity causes academic performance to decline, which in turn has a significant negative effect with increasing anxiety.

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Difficulty in video games is an essential factor for a game to be considered engaging and is directly linked to losing in a game. However, for the user to not feel bored or frustrated, it is necessary for the difficulty of the game to be balanced and ideally tailored to the user. This paper presents the design and development of a serious game that adjusts its difficulty based on the user’s bio signals, so that it is demanding enough to match his/her skills, in order to enter the flow state. The serious game is accompanied by a server that uses machine learning algorithms to analyze the user’s bio signals and classify them into different affective states. These states are later used to adjust the difficulty of the serious game in real-time, without interfering with the user’s game experience. Finally, a heuristic evaluation was conducted in order to measure its usability and highlight the good practices and to draw attention to some elements of the game that should be changed in a future version.