Game‐based, gamified, and gamefully designed assessments for employee selection: Definitions, distinctions, design, and validation

Abstract

Reflecting practitioner efforts to improve existing psychometric assessments, a new games‐related class of assessments and assessment design approaches has emerged, and research is beginning to examine it as well. Understanding this class of assessments requires understanding of three major terms. First, game‐based assessment refers to an assessment method in which job candidates are players participating in a core gameplay loop while trait information is inferred. Second, gameful design refers to practices by assessment professionals using game mechanics or other game concepts to guide their decision‐making in assessment design. Third, gamification refers to practices by assessment professionals changing existing assessments by adding game mechanics and applying game concepts to them. Whereas game‐based assessment is itself an assessment method, the other two are (re)design strategies. In this review, we explore these distinctions in finer terms, describe the game design and development processes necessary to create a functional game‐based assessment, describe theoretical and practical concerns related to the use or addition of game mechanics in traditional assessment methods, and present evaluation guidelines for the entire assessment class. Overall, we conclude that the future of games‐related assessment is promising, but further progress will require a focus on interdisciplinary understanding and much greater integration of design and development into assessment theory.

Game-related assessments for personnel selection: A systematic review

“…An example of this strategy is Hommel et al 's (2022) modification of the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test by incorporating a narrative context, the possibility of earning points, and a progression graph during the game. Landers and Sanchez (2022) focus on games developed to evaluate what other classifications have called serious games (Wiernik et al, 2022). However, conceptually, we can also include the possibility of using conventional games to gather information about specific abilities, such as general cognitive ability (Quiroga et al, 2019;Peters et al, 2021).…”

Videogame-Based Training: The Impact and Interaction of Videogame Characteristics on Learning Outcomes

“…It is important to know that careful consideration was given to the selection criteria for selecting the game used in the current study. As research suggests, videogame-based interventions are most effective when game content and characteristics are aligned to the desired outcome [19,26,116]. Five selection criteria were used in considering games for this study.…”

“…Fifth, the game needed to be reasonably accessible to the author and participants. The current game is available free of charge, making it a reasonable option due to limited research funding [1,5,19]. Based on these selection criteria Moonbase Alpha was a satisfactory option for the present study.…”

“…Recent research in this area has focused the different elements of videogames [11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18]. Videogame-based trainings, sometimes called serious games [19] attract organizations because they are perceived to increase motivation and attention [20] which is believed to improve learning outcomes [21]. Despite this belief, there is mixed research evidence for the usefulness and application of videogame-based training as a tool for workplace training [22,23].…”

“…However, it is still largely unknown how videogame characteristics influence learning [25]. Luckily there has been ore recent theoretical interest in videogame characteristics [19], and a growing number of empirical studies are being published [28,29]. While several researchers have shifted towards micro examinations of the connection between videogame characteristics and improved training outcomes [30][31][32], few have isolated and manipulated specific videogame characteristics to observe changes in learning outcomes [33,34].…”