Serious Game - Research and Education

Research and Education

The Game and Learning Alliance (GaLA) is a Network of Excellence on serious games launched by the European Union in October 2010 in the context of technology-enhanced learning. It is in the 7th Framework Programme for research. The network, coordinated by the University of Genoa, involves 31 partners including universities, research centres and leading industries at EU level.

Utrecht University offers an MSc in Game and Media Technology. In England, the University of Salford set up an "MSc in Creative Games" in 2005. Michigan State University in the United States offers a Serious Games MA, a Master of Arts graduate program and graduate certificate in serious game design. The University of Skövde in Sweden offers a Serious Games Master Programme.

Health education is a particular area where results have been observed by the use of serious games "Video games, enhanced by behavior-change technology and motivating story lines, offer promise for promoting diet and physical activity change for diabetes and obesity prevention in youth." (Thompson).

Intrinsic motivation is another feature provided by serious games that facilitates education. To produce motivation four characteristics are provided by serious games "challenge, curiosity, control and the imagination / imaginary (fantasy)" (Mouaheb). These four characteristics create a particular advantage "in an educational context the game is likely to make the learning process interesting in itself to obtain the greatest motivation in the learner" (Mouaheb).

The dynamic nature of virtual environments also causes "active participation by the player" (Mouaheb). Active participation leads to "a fertile ground for the generation of real cognitive conflicts ensuring a personal and solid build of knowledge" (Mouaheb). Another researcher confirms this view "computer games are more engaging, motivating and interesting by virtue of their interaction, rich universes, challenges and safety" (Egenfeldt-Nielsen).

The combination of all these factors leads to significant benefits "retention increases when using computer games compared to other teaching" (Egenfeldt-Nielsen). The use of reward in a behavioral sense is also a powerful tool in serious games "the video game will ask a question and the player will answer. When students link the question and the answer enough times, reinforced by a reward, learning will occur" (Egenfeldt-Nielsen).

Limited studies have been performed to compare the effectiveness of serious games to other learning formats. One such study comparing games to an educational video found that "The children playing the video game expressed more enjoyment and learned the same as those watching the television program" (Egenfeldt-Nielsen). Studies have shown that games can have a strong effect on day-to-day health management. In one study, children who played a game about healthy living principles had "a 77 percent drop in visits to urgent care and medical visits in the experimental group compared with the control group" (Egenfeldt-Nielsen).