Comparative Study to Develop a Tool for the Quality Assessment of Serious Games Intended to be Used in Education

Abstract

Serious games are present today in several fields such as education, government, health, defense, industry, civil security and science. In our research we are particularly interested in serious games used in education since they have become an essential part of the learning process and one of the main pedagogical tools used for diffusion of educational messages. So the use of serious games in an educational context can motivate students and stimulate their interest as they fit into a world they know and in which they feel comfortable. But the real issue is that they have not been exploited to their full potential in order to ensure efficient use in education.
 This work tries to meet this issue. It is interested in contributing to the knowledge of serious games as well as to promote their use in educational field. Based on the metadata schema «SG-LOM» to formally describe serious games and other comparative study, we suggest examining pedagogical, Playful and Technical criteria to conduct this study which aims to develop an assessment and analysis grid of the quality of serious games intended to be used in educational field.

A systematic literature review on serious games evaluation: An application to software project management

“…The second one uses an evaluation grid. ) (El Borji & Khaldi, 2014 In Figure 12, we can observe that 90% of the primary studies used questionnaires as the main method for the evaluation of serious games. This technique is followed by interviews, which were used as the evaluation technique by approximately 20% of the primary studies.…”

“…Most of these studies used both quantitative and qualitative questions, being the Likert scale the preferred method to help users provide their answers to the questions. The primary studies that provide the questions used to assess the serious game are the following: (Bascoul, Schmitt, Rasolofoarison, Chamberlain, & Lee, 2013) (Basole, Bodner, & Rouse, 2013) (Bevilacqua, Ciarapica, Emanuele, Mazzuto, & Paciarotti, 2014) (Brom, Šisler, & Slavík, 2010) (Buttussi & Chittaro, 2010) (Cook, McAloon, O'Neill, & Beggs, 2012) (Costantino, Di Gravio, Shaban, & Tronci, 2012) (Couceiro, Papastergiou, Kordaki, & Veloso, 2013) (Cowley, Heikura, & Ravaja, 2013) (Cowley, Fantato, Jennett, Ruskov, & Ravaja, 2014) (Creutzfeldt, Hedman, Heinrichs, Youngblood, & Felländer-Tsai, 2013) (Cronan, Léger, Robert, Babin, & Charland, 2012) (Dudzinski, Greenhill, Kayyali, & Nabhani, 2013) ) (El Borji & Khaldi, 2014 (Hookham, Nesbitt, Cooper, Croft, & Rasiah, 2015) (Lányi, Brown, Standen, & Butkute, 2012) (Zhang, Caldwell, & Smith, 2013) (Zin & Yue, 2013).…”

“…A correct answer allows the player to move closer to the maze exit, an incorrect solution moves the player farther from the end of the maze. Robocode (El Borji & Khaldi, 2014) is another programming game, where the goal is to develop a robot battle tank to battle against other tanks in Java or .NET. CMX is an educational Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG) that aims to introduce students to computer programming.…”

Are Educational Games Engaging and Motivating Moroccan Students to Learn Physics?

“…On the basis of available models of grids proposed by several researchers [19], [20], [21], [22], [23], [24] and by improving them according to the Moroccan context and the researches regarding the value of using educational games. We developed a selection grid; the grid itself contains four sub-grids corresponding to the four categories mentioned above.…”

MOLPP, a New Generic Approach to Design a System for Monitoring Player Progress in Serious Games

“…This need has been proven in a previous work whose goal was to contribute to the knowledge of Serious Games and promote their use in the educational field. We presented a comparative study which allowed to develop a tool for the evaluation of the quality of the Serious Games intended to be used in the education by examining their technical aspects, playful and pedagogical [3].…”