Engagement States and Learning from Educational Games

Deater‐Deckard, Kirby; Chang, Mido; Evans, Michael E.

doi:10.1002/cad.20028

Cited by 59 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 22 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Ultimately, these results lead to the question, whether ‘fun’ and ‘enjoyment’ are adequate constructs to grasp meaningful motivational processes in serious game experiences. Some authors propose research on ‘student engagement’ as a more suitable and broader focus to analyse positive emotions when learning with serious games as it combines by aspects such as ‘emotional engagement’, ‘behavioural engagement’ and ‘cognitive engagement’ (Deater‐Deckard et al , ; Pekrun & Linnenbrink‐Garcia, ). While fun might still be a relevant category, future research should take other aspects of engagement into account as well.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…While it is traditionally a common notion that games make learning ‘fun’, it is less clear what ‘fun’ in serious games actually means and how it is related to cognitive, emotional and behavioural engagement (Deater‐Deckard, Chang & Evans, ; Filsecker & Kerres, in press). While in learning research, ‘fun’ is often seen as a mediating variable in the learning process that is closely related to the learning content, general media studies take a different approach.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Learning with serious games: Is fun playing the game a predictor of learning success?

Iten¹,

Petko²

2014

Brit J Educational Tech

224

135

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Serious games are generally considered to induce positive effects in the areas of learning motivation and learning gains. Yet few studies have examined how these factors are related. Therefore, an empirical study was conducted to test the relationship between anticipated enjoyment and willingness to play, as well as between game enjoyment, self-reported cognitive and motivational learning gains and test results. In an explorative study, 74 children from five primary schools played the learning game AWWWARE. The results of pre-and post-tests were analysed using multiple linear regressions. The analysis showed that anticipated enjoyment played only a minor part in students' willingness to learn with serious games. Of greater importance was the students' expectation that the learning game would be easy and instructive. The level of actual enjoyment of the game also had a smaller influence than expected. While there was a correlation between enjoyment and the motivation to continue being engaged with the subject matter of the game, no effect was found with respect to self-assessed or tested learning gains. The results lead to the conclusion that other factors, such as explicit learning tasks, instruction and support inherent in the game or supplemented by teachers, may be more decisive than the experience of fun during the game.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Learning with serious games: Is fun playing the game a predictor of learning success?

Iten¹,

Petko²

2014

Brit J Educational Tech

224

135

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Embedding opportunities to assess the mechanical skills of mouse‐ and reach‐tracking (i.e., via reaction time to complete a move or the spatial trajectory of a given move) within game and app log data, provides a vehicle for examining cognitive development among middle childhood media users in the digital age. More broadly, digital games elicit short bursts and longer sustained application of what have been referred to as “engagement states” (Deater‐Deckard, Chang, & Evans, ). This area is a potential research target as children's engagement with the game and its content spans behavioral, affective, and cognitive dimensions, such as individual differences in attention, memory, motor speed and control, persistence, and positive and negative affect (approach/avoidance).…”

Section: Media Use During Middle Childhoodmentioning

confidence: 99%

Digital Games as a Context for Children's Cognitive Development: Research Recommendations and Policy Considerations

Blumberg

Deater‐Deckard

Calvert

et al. 2019

Social Policy Report

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We document the need to examine digital game play and app use as a context for cognitive development, particularly during middle childhood. We highlight this developmental period as 6‐ through 12‐year olds comprise a large swath of the preadult population that plays and uses these media forms. Surprisingly, this age range remains understudied with regard to the impact of their interactive media use as compared to young children and adolescents. This gap in knowledge about middle childhood may reflect strong and widely held concerns about the effects of digital games and apps before and after this period. These concerns include concurrent and subsequent influences of game use on very young children's and adolescents’ cognitive and socioemotional functioning. We highlight here what is currently known about the impact of media on young children and adolescents and what is not known about this impact in middle childhood. We then offer recommendations for the types of research that developmental scientists can undertake to examine the efficacy of digital games within the rapidly changing media ecology in which children live. We conclude with a discussion of media policies that we believe can help children benefit from their media use. Our hope is that this review will foster greater investigation of the cognitive socialization, as raised over 20 years ago by developmental psychologist and early games researcher Patricia Greenfield, that digital games serve during the middle childhood period, and childhood more generally.

show abstract

“…Effective science education requires the integration of these three factors. Games provide a potentially valuable tool because they provide opportunities for cognitive and metacognitive engagement and are typically highly motivating (Deater-Deckard et al, 2013). …”

Section: What Is Scientific Thinking?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Gaming science: the “Gamification” of scientific thinking

Morris¹,

Croker²,

Zimmerman³

et al. 2013

Front. Psychol.

168

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Science is critically important for advancing economics, health, and social well-being in the twenty-first century. A scientifically literate workforce is one that is well-suited to meet the challenges of an information economy. However, scientific thinking skills do not routinely develop and must be scaffolded via educational and cultural tools. In this paper we outline a rationale for why we believe that video games have the potential to be exploited for gain in science education. The premise we entertain is that several classes of video games can be viewed as a type of cultural tool that is capable of supporting three key elements of scientific literacy: content knowledge, process skills, and understanding the nature of science. We argue that there are three classes of mechanisms through which video games can support scientific thinking. First, there are a number of motivational scaffolds, such as feedback, rewards, and flow states that engage students relative to traditional cultural learning tools. Second, there are a number of cognitive scaffolds, such as simulations and embedded reasoning skills that compensate for the limitations of the individual cognitive system. Third, fully developed scientific thinking requires metacognition, and video games provide metacognitive scaffolding in the form of constrained learning and identity adoption. We conclude by outlining a series of recommendations for integrating games and game elements in science education and provide suggestions for evaluating their effectiveness.

show abstract

Engagement States and Learning from Educational Games

Cited by 59 publications

References 22 publications

Learning with serious games: Is fun playing the game a predictor of learning success?

Learning with serious games: Is fun playing the game a predictor of learning success?

Digital Games as a Context for Children's Cognitive Development: Research Recommendations and Policy Considerations

Gaming science: the “Gamification” of scientific thinking

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About