Serious games are becoming an alternative educational method in a variety of fields because of their potential to improve the quality of learning experiences and to facilitate knowledge acquisition and content understanding. Moreover, entertainment-driven learners are more easily motivated to benefit from the learning process through meaningful activities defined in a game context. Interfacing educational computer games with multisensorial interfaces allows for a seamless integration between virtual and physical environments. Multisensorial cues can improve memory and attention and increase the cognitive and sensory-motor performance. Despite of the increasing knowledge in sensory processes, multisensory experiences and interactions in computer based instruction remain insufficiently explored and understood. In this paper, we present a multisensory educational gameFragrance Channel -and we investigate how enabling olfaction can contribute to users' learning performance, engagement and quality of experience. We compare results obtained after experiencing Fragrance Channel in the presence and absence of olfactory feedback on both a mobile and a PC. A knowledge test administered before and immediately after showed that our proposed educational game led to an improvement of performance in all the explored conditions. Subjective measurements carried out after the olfactory experience showed that students enjoyed the scenario and appreciated it as being relevant.
Adventure education activities are courses that emphasize on first hand experience learning in situated environment with cooperative groups. In this research, Xbox Kinect and Unity 3D game engine are used to develop the two adventure education games. Digital games can solve some of the problems physical adventure education activities face, such as space limitations and dangers. With the simulations, players can experience the unattainable activities in real life, immerse in the collaborative activities, and explore the value of adventure education. From the post-game reflections, players can perceive their roles in the group, understand the mechanism of leadership, and solve problems. Participants' collaborative gaming process will be recorded by computers and observations conducted by researchers to understand participants' social behaviors. Questionnaires and tests will be used to analyze participants' collaboration patterns. It is hoped that the analysis results offer some in-depth perspectives to the field for the future research.
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