For this study, we designed a serious game to engage Danish gymnasium students when reading the novella A Love Story, written by the prize-winning Danish author Naja Marie Aidt. The novella is mandatory reading in postmodernism. The study included 41 students from two Danish gymnasiums, who were divided into three classes. Two classes were included in the experimental study, which employed the serious game as part of reading the novella. One class served as the control group and engaged only in an analog reading of the novella. The evaluation criteria, which were assessed through a questionnaire, were based on items from the reading engagement index, the user engagement scale, and the narrative engagement scale. Furthermore, the evaluation consisted of in-depth interviews with teachers and students. The findings revealed a positive effect on students' engagement in the experimental group and the possibility for future work in the field of serious games implemented in high school curricula. The serious game developed for this study balanced challenge and skills appropriately, but it could be improved in terms of the story world and controls.
This study aims to support a mandatory reading of a novella for high school students by a serious game. The study includes 41 students. The first class is included in the experimental study, which uses a serious game to read the novella. The second class served as the control group and engaged only in analog reading. The evaluation is based on a questionnaire with reading, user, and narrative engagement items. Furthermore, the assessment consists of in-depth interviews with teachers and students. The findings positively affected students’ engagement in the experimental group. Primarily focused attention and reward are higher in the experimental group. However, there was no difference in the narrative engagement between the two groups, indicating that the story (digital or not) is well explained. The qualitative findings revealed positive comments, especially for the reading engagement and the story world. The novelty in this study is the outlined game design process, guided by elements in the foundation, game design, prototyping, and implementation. For the game design, we outlined how to transform the principles from Sweetser and Wyeth to applied design implementations. An important aspect was to illustrate the protagonist with schizophrenia.
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