Using an alternate reality game to facilitate student engagement during orientation

Abstract

An alternate reality game was designed to facilitate transition and engagement amongst students commencing a tertiary preparation program at a regional university in Australia. The design of the game was informed by a student engagement framework which proposes four psychosocial constructs which mediate engagement at the intersection between student and institutional influences: self-efficacy, belonging, well-being, and emotion. The 108 participants completed a survey which measured these constructs prior to the commencement of the game. Game players (n = 13) were surveyed again immediately after the game. The results of statistical analysis indicated that game players reported a greater sense of well-being and more positive emotions than the group surveyed before the game.

Smart rogaining for computer science orientation

“…Gamification is also being used for orientation. Scavenger hunts (Talton et al, 2006;Hutzler et al, 2017;Manzoor et al, 2020) are very common for university orientation as well as role games (Blecic et al, 2007) especially when combined, e.g., with the virtual reality (Fitz-Walter et al, 2012;Glencross and Elsom, 2019).…”

“…More in general, initiatives for promoting computer science are nowadays organized by most of the colleges and universities around the world (Vegas et al, 2021). In the meantime, formats such as scavenger hunt (Talton et al, 2006;Hutzler et al, 2017;Manzoor et al, 2020), role games (Blecic et al, 2007), online polls (Glencross and Elsom, 2019) are becoming more and more popular for student orientation, especially when combined with the use of emerging technology, i.e., mobile applications, wearable sensors, virtual, and augmented reality, etc.…”