The purpose of this study is to explore how different game designs support students' learning and enjoyment of fractions, specifically, early learning of equivalence and ordering. Two sets of games were contrasted, one that was characterized as "exploratory and implicit," and a second that was characterized as "directive and…

Skills associated with collaborative problem solving (CPS), especially in STEM-related disciplines, are increasingly regarded as essential for success in work and life. In the last decade, simulation-based games have emerged as rich environments for the situated learning of such skills, and are instrumental in the study of CPS because they provide…

We have iteratively designed and researched five digital games focusing on Newtonian dynamics for middle school classrooms during the past seven years. The designs have evolved dramatically in terms of the roles and relationships of the formal representations, phenomenological representations, and control schemes. Phenomenological representations…

Research-based digital games hold great potential to be effective tools in supporting next-generation science learning. However, as with all instructional materials, teachers significantly influence their implementation and contribute to their effectiveness. To more fully understand the contributions and challenges of teacher implementation of…

The University of Patras' Library Services designed and offered to primary and secondary schools the pilot educational program "From the Ancient to the Modern Tablets," featuring immersive multimedia learning experiences about the book history. The pilot program consisted of three stages: a playful library tour, followed by an…

The present study investigates the effects of game-based language learning with Kinect technology on students' self-efficacy beliefs and attitudes toward English. The study was conducted at a state university located in Central Turkey. Foreign language education is promoted in Turkey, yet because of several factors, among which weekly hours of…

The purpose of this study was to design and develop an educational game which facilitates building adolescents' knowledge and attitudes in financial principles of a daily life. To achieve this purpose, the authors designed a learner-centered big game for financial education by applying an experience-based triple-diamond instructional design model…

Traditional teacher education programs focus on pedagogy and, to a lesser extent, assessments of knowledge (Siedlecki, 2012). Pedagogy and assessments should be fundamental components of any secondary teacher's curriculum planning (Knight, Shum, & Littleton, 2014). This study sought to consider the possible effects of three pedagogical…

Aim/Purpose: Students face many challenges improving their soft skills such as critical thinking. This paper offers one possible solution to this problem. Background: This paper considers one method of enhancing critical thinking through a problem-solving game called the Coffee Shop. Problem-solving is a key component to critical thinking, and…

Working memory capacities are associated with mathematical development. Many studies have tried to improve working memory abilities through training. Furthermore, the central executive has been shown to be the component of working memory, which is the most strongly related to numerical and arithmetical skills. Therefore, we developed a training…

In this paper we discuss an activity through which students learn basic concepts in genetics by taking part in a police investigation game. The activity, which we have called Recal, immerses students in a scientific-based scenario in which they play a role of a scientific assessor. Players have to develop and use scientific reasoning and…

Real-life room-escape games are ludic activities in which participants enter a room in order to get out of it only after solving some riddles. In this paper, we explain a Room Escape teaching experience developed in the Engineering School at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. The goal of this activity is to increase student's motivation and to…

The teaching of sorting algorithms is an essential topic in undergraduate computing courses. Typically the courses are taught through traditional lectures and exercises involving the implementation of the algorithms. As an alternative, this article presents the design and evaluation of three educational games for teaching Quicksort and Heapsort.…

The teaching of communication skills is a labour-intensive task because of the detailed feedback that should be given to learners during their prolonged practice. This study investigates to what extent our FILTWAM facial and vocal emotion recognition software can be used for improving a serious game (the Communication Advisor) that delivers a…

This study examined the role of formative and summative assessment in instructional video games on student learning and engagement. A 2 (formative feedback: present vs absent) × 2 (summative feedback: present vs absent) factorial design with an offset control (recorded lecture) was conducted to explore the impacts of assessment in video games. A…