In conversation, individual utterances are almost always ambiguous, with this ambiguity resolved by context and discourse history ("common ground"). One important cue for disambiguation is the topic under discussion with a particular partner (e.g., "want to pick?" means something different in a conversation with a bluegrass…

Environmental sustainability education should create eco-awareness and produce pro-environmental behaviors. Traditional instructional methods create eco-awareness but do not make people act. Purposefully designed digital games for attitudinal instruction provide cognitive knowledge, engage learners emotionally by showing the consequences of…

Computer games are considered a useful tool for educational purposes. Alternative media applications such as serious games combine edification with challenge and entertainment. Thus, learning becomes enjoyable, more comfortable, and more efficient. The paper presents the implementation of an educational computer game regarding traffic behavior…

The use of apps in preschool has increased considerably during the last few years. Studies have shown that digital technologies are sometimes used to replace analogue artefacts in educational settings. This calls for studies on how the use of apps transforms preschool activities. This study empirically investigates how preschool children play…

Does a teachable agent influence the uptake or neglect of 'critical constructive feedback' and learning within a digital environment? 285 middle-school students engaged with a history learning game in a 2x2 study design. One dimension was inclusion of a teachable agent. Orthogonal was whether critical constructive feedback was presented…

E-sports games have recently become a popular internet game especially among young people and are played at a professional and amateur level. The effect of replacing traditional games with such digital games on the development of children and young people is hotly discussed among the parents and educators. This study aims to investigate…

Despite the unquestionable academic interest on corpus-based approaches to language education, the use of corpora by teachers in their everyday practice is still not very widespread. One way to promote usage of corpora in language teaching is by making pedagogically appropriate corpora, labelled with different types of problems (for instance,…

This work presents a systematic review whose objective was to identify heuristics applicable to the evaluation of the usability of educational games. Heuristics are usability engineering methods that aim to detect problems in the use of a system during its development and/or when its interface is in interaction with the user. Therefore, applying…

The computer game Foldit is currently widely used as a biology and biochemistry teaching aid. Herein, we introduce a new feature of Foldit called "custom contests" that allows educators to create puzzles that fit their curriculum. The effectiveness of the custom contests is demonstrated by the use of five distinct custom contests in an…

Although digital games have become a constituent part of young children's lives, not enough is known about the kinds of meanings children give to games and gaming. This qualitative study contributes to resolving this need by engaging 26 5- to 7-year-old Finnish preschoolers in an open-ended drawing task to answer the following research questions:…

The Chinese Radical Assembly Game (CRAG) is an online platform that assesses the lexical competence. In which, individuals select different Chinese radicals to combine them and form a legitimate character. This concept is similar to that of creative synthesis. Therefore, this study aimed to examine whether the CRAG response process involves…

To provide a project-based learning experience during the COVID-19 outbreak, we mailed experimental kits to 285 undergraduate students and developed curriculum for a multi-player online robot simulation game. Students successfully achieved cognitive objectives and rated the remote learning experience comparably to the prior-year in-person…

Background: Children and adolescents are major computer and technology gadget users. While serious games hold important promises for promoting health-related behavioral change and mental health among children and adolescents, their efficacy is yet unclear. Objectives: We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to offer a…

The current socio-ecological challenges and phenomena that are major topics of geography education, like climate change and migration, are highly complex. Maturity in these contexts requires a networked way of thinking, and a systemic competence that is difficult to develop in geography classes alone. Digital games that simulate complex systems…

The purpose of this research is to investigate students' learning experiences in a systematic game development process. The study was conducted at a science and arts center, where gifted students can enroll in after-school activities. Fifteen students and one instructor participated in a 12-week problem-solving implementation. During the last five…