Over time, Serious games (SG) has turned into a trend, using technology to create playful learning experiences. The last years has witnessed an increasingly recognition of Serious game’s value and their significantly impact on all levels of education (Johnson et al., 2016). The design of serious games has got more attention due to the fact that many issues in designing and developing serious games are still not adequately addressed. Many studies have been conducted on what makes serious games effective learning tool.
Klabbers (1999) defines a game as “an activity or sport involving skill, knowledge or chance in which you follow fixed rules and try to win against an opponent or solve a puzzle”. The focus of traditional games has often been on entertainment and user experience, but currently games can draw the players attentions using fun aspects for other domains like education (Alvarez, 2008). While Prensky (2001) confirms that a game should include the elements of goals, outcomes and feedback, challenge, interaction, rules and story, there are different attempts in defining a game and what elements it should include. Brathwaite and Schreiber (2009) emphasize this idea in their definition of game: “An activity with rules. It is a form of play often but not always involving conflict, either with other players, with the game system itself or with randomness/fate/luck”.
More interesting in this context, is de Freitas (2006) definition of digital game-based learning: “applications using the characteristics of video and computer games to create engaging and immersive learning experiences for delivering specified learning goals, outcomes and experiences”. In an educational context, game is a goal-oriented and rule-bounded play format that has the objective of enhancing the effectiveness of students’ learning (Bellotti et al., 2014). This approach has got the term “Serious games” and was introduced for the first time by Clark Abt in “Serious Games” book published in 1970. Clarck wrote in his book:” We are concerned with serious games in the sense of that these games have an explicit and carefully thought–out educational purpose and are not intended to be primarily for amusement”. In this book, the notion was employed for card games with educational objectives. Currently, it is widely acknowledged that the concept is applicable in a computing context and is not limited to video games but features also educational games. Zyda (2005) defines serious game as “A mental contest, played with a computer in accordance with specific rules, that uses entertainment to further govern or corporate training, education, health, public policy, and strategic communication objectives”.
Published by: Fatma Alrifi (10.06.2020)
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