An approach to evaluating the user experience of serious games

Moizer, Jonathan; Lean, Jonathan; Dell’Aquila, Elena; Walsh, Paul; Keary, Alphonsus; O'Byrne, Deirdre; Ferdinando, Andrea Di; Miglino, Orazio; Friedrich, Ralf P.; Asperges, Roberta; Sica, Luigia Simona

doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2019.04.006

Cited by 90 publications

(53 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…The level of fidelity achieved in a simulation or game concerns how closely it corresponds to the real world (Moizer et al, 2019). High-fidelity can be important to a simulation where transfer of knowledge learnt within the game to real world situations is required (Jones & Bursens, 2015;Petridis et al, 2012), such as in the case of medical procedures.…”

Section: Fidelitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Real World Learning: Simulation and Gaming

Lean

Moizer

Derham

et al. 2020

Applied Pedagogies for Higher Education

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Simulations and games are being used across a variety of subject areas as a means to provide insight into real world situations within a classroom setting; they offer many of the benefits of real world learning but without some of the associated risks and costs. Lean, Moizer, Derham, Strachan and Bhuiyan aim to evaluate the role of simulations and games in real world learning. The nature of simulations and games is discussed with reference to a variety of examples in Higher Education. Their role in real world learning is evaluated with reference to the benefits and challenges of their use for teaching and learning in Higher Education. Three case studies from diverse subject contexts are reported to illustrate the use of simulations and games and some of the associated issues.

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Section: Fidelitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Real World Learning: Simulation and Gaming

Lean

Moizer

Derham

et al. 2020

Applied Pedagogies for Higher Education

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“…Two of the best-known factors that influence the acceptance, use, and success of any video game are the players’ enjoyment and the players’ experience satisfaction [ 21 - 26 ]. If players do not enjoy the game or have a satisfying gaming experience, they will not play the game [ 27 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Relationship Between Children’s Enjoyment, User Experience Satisfaction, and Learning in a Serious Video Game for Nutrition Education: Empirical Pilot Study

Espinosa-Curiel¹,

Pozas-Bogarin²,

Martı́nez-Miranda³

et al. 2020

JMIR Serious Games

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Background The design and use of serious video games for children have increased in recent years. To maximize the effects of these games, it is essential to understand the children’s experiences through playing. Previous studies identified that enjoyment and user experience satisfaction of the players are principal factors that can influence the success of serious video games and the learning of their players. However, research about the relationship between enjoyment and user experience satisfaction with learning in children 8 to 10 years old is sparse. Objective We examined the relationship of enjoyment and user experience satisfaction with the learning of children aged 8 to 10 years while playing a serious video game for health, FoodRateMaster. This serious video game teaches children about the characteristics of healthy and unhealthy foods and how to identify them in their environment. Methods Children aged 8 to 10 years were recruited from a primary school in Mexico. Participants completed 12 individual gaming sessions with FoodRateMaster in 6 weeks. A food knowledge questionnaire was administered before and after game play to assess the players’ food knowledge. In addition, after the gaming sessions, the children’s enjoyment and user experience satisfaction were evaluated using the EGameFlow questionnaire and the Game User Experience Satisfaction Scale (GUESS) questionnaire. Results We found significant positive associations for children’s (n=60) posttest knowledge with enjoyment (r58=0.36, P=.005) and user experience satisfaction (r58=0.27, P=.04). The children’s posttest knowledge scores were also positively correlated with challenge (r58=0.38, P=.003), knowledge improvement (r58=0.38, P=.003), and goal clarity (r58=0.29, P=.02) EGameFlow subscales and with narrative (r58=0.35, P=.006), creative freedom (r58=0.26, P=.04), and visual esthetics (r58=0.32, P=.01) GUESS subscales. Regression analysis indicated that the EGameFlow (F7,52=2.74, P=.02, R2=0.27) and the GUESS (F8,51=2.20, P=.04, R2=0.26) ratings significantly predicted the children’s posttest knowledge scores. EGameFlow challenge (β=0.40, t52=2.17, P=.04) and knowledge improvement (β=0.29, t52=2.06, P=.04) subscales significantly contributed to predicting children’s learning. None of the GUESS subscales significantly contributed to predicting children’s learning. Conclusions The findings of this study suggest that both enjoyment and user experience satisfaction for children aged 8 to 10 years were positively correlated with their learning and that were significant predictors of it. Challenge, knowledge improvement, narrative, creative freedom, and visual esthetics subscales correlated positively with children’s learning. In addition, challenge and knowledge improvement contributed to predicting their learning. These results are relevant to consider during the design stages of serious games developed for young children’s learning purposes.

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“…Role-playing games simulate a social situation in which users are asked to cover and interpret specific roles to develop a certain competence, such as effective communication or negotiation [34][35][36][37][38]. Here, learners, as actors, according to a specific script, perform and develop their actions on a stage.…”

Section: Agents In Eg and The Spa Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

Situated Psychological Agents: A Methodology for Educational Games

et al. 2019

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Featured Application: The present paper introduces a methodology based on situated psychological agents that can be fruitfully applied to design and implement educational games, as it permits to represent the flows inside the game on the educational, psychological, and pedagogical level while detailing agents' features at a psychological level.Abstract: In recent years, the ever-increasing need for valid and effective training to acquire competences in multiform contexts has led to a wide diffusion of educational games (EG). In spite of their diffusion, there is still a need to reflect on the design process that should embed the games' pedagogical potential and the instructional process in the entertainment scope. Moreover, as building EG, especially in digital environments, is an enterprise that involves specialists with different expertise, it can be useful to have a shared methodology that is easily understandable and usable by many users. In this paper, we propose to use situated psychological agents (SPA) as a methodology to design and build effective EG and show how to represent games in terms of SPA and their interactions by diagrams and describe different examples of how this approach has been applied. Appl. Sci. 2019, 9, 4887 2 of 22 and social media to obtain information. The world where education takes place is no more limited to the physical classroom but is expanded to cover potentially an unlimited world, in terms of space and time, that is totally or partially virtual. If we consider the tools that have been introduced in the educational context, it seems that, in spite of their wide diffusion, there is still a need to reflect on the methodology to design, implement, and use them in a learning scenario.In more detail, it can be a useful reflection on the methodology to design and implement educational games, as an effective methodology should permit to have a shared formal representation of the main game elements, of their connections and their interactions.In what follows, we will propose a methodology that meets this requirement, which is based on the situated psychological agents (SPA) approach, connecting it to the EG design process. Educational and Serious Games: The Design ProcessSerious games are games that educate, train, and inform, to use the title of the highly cited paper by Michael and Chen [5]. Since the first book by Abt [11], which referred to card and board games, serious games have become digital and have strongly affirmed their educational potentials [12,13]. This fact forces to critically reflect on this kind of games, as they intervene in the learning process in a way that has not been faced yet in traditional learning theory and typical game theory as well. Many remarkable theoretical frameworks have been proposed, also recently, to satisfy this need. Among these, it is useful to cite the learning mechanics-game mechanics model [14], which draws a set of pre-defined game mechanics and pedagogical elements abstracted from the literature and connects them to identify the ma...

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An approach to evaluating the user experience of serious games

Cited by 90 publications

References 37 publications

Real World Learning: Simulation and Gaming

Real World Learning: Simulation and Gaming

Relationship Between Children’s Enjoyment, User Experience Satisfaction, and Learning in a Serious Video Game for Nutrition Education: Empirical Pilot Study

Situated Psychological Agents: A Methodology for Educational Games

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