Mapping Role-Playing Games in Ibero-America: An Educational Review

Abstract

Role-playing games (RPGs) have a controversial public image in several countries, including Spain. These fears lack a scientific basis, as role-playing games may be useful in education. Educational trends such as gamification are helping to change this perspective, incorporating elements of RPGs in applications like learning management systems (LMS), e.g., Classcraft. Given the increased research interest in this topic, this paper presents a systematic literature review (SLR) report on the state-of-the-art related to RPGs in an Ibero-American education research context. In the study, a comprehensive search is carried out for the most relevant research papers indexed in Latindex, founded through the virtual repository Dialnet for papers between 2010 and 2019 in the field of education. The search chain was ‘role-playing games’, erasing those topics not related. Results show that there are several relevant references, even though they do not seem to have had a great impact. It can be concluded that there is an interest in RPGs in education, especially in Spain, but their potential is still to be developed.

A Content Analysis and Meta-Analysis on the Effects of Classcraft on Gamification Learning Experiences in terms of Learning Achievement and Motivation

“…Classcraft has comprehensive game features. Classcraft reflects multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) where an avatar represents and distinguishes each player (Grande-de-Peado and Baelo) [10,32,35].…”

“…e reward or penalty system based on points encourages learners to perform the desired behaviours [28,31,46,76]. Instructors can constrain or reinforce learners' specific behaviours [11,12,28,35]. e activity of Wheel of Destiny involves random roll calls to improve learners' attention and guarantee a vibrant and dynamic in-class atmosphere [11,12].…”

Edu-Escape Rooms

“…Game-Based Learning refers to complete games that are designed with playful intent and are used in teaching [18,19]. Game-Based Learning creates a fun, motivating, and interactive virtual learning environment, using gaming technologies [20].…”

“…It is like going to play to Warcraft, Skyrim, Catan, Cluedo, or Dungeons & Dragons (or any other game, these are only examples of very well-known games) and doing everything before playing and after playing but, indeed, not actually playing. In Game-Based Learning [19] you play, because play activity is important, in these cases, for learning.…”

El uso de las historias para la docencia en el Grado de Educación

“…En la actualidad, el profesorado tiene en la narración una de las herramientas con las que poner en práctica, metodologías docentes activas innovadoras como es la gamificación. Ésta se ha convertido en una alternativa atractiva ya que responde a los intereses de los estudiantes en el juego, brinda la posibilidad de aprender jugando (Werbach y Hunter, 2012) y favorece la motivación hacia el aprendizaje (García-Martín y García-Martín, 2020; Grande- de-Prado et al, 2020).…”