Practical, appropriate, empirically-validated guidelines for designing educational games

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingsChapterpeer-review

Abstract

There has recently been a great deal of interest in the potential of computer games to function as innovative educational tools. However, there is very little evidence of games fulfilling that potential. Indeed, the process of merging the disparate goals of education and games design appears problematic, and there are currently no practical guidelines for how to do so in a coherent manner. In this paper, we describe the successful, empirically validated teaching methods developed by behavioural psychologists and point out how they are uniquely suited to take advantage of the benefits that games offer to education. We conclude by proposing some practical steps for designing educational games, based on the techniques of Applied Behaviour Analysis. It is intended that this paper can both focus educational games designers on the features of games that are genuinely useful for education, and also introduce a successful form of teaching that this audience may not yet be familiar with.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationCHI 2011 - 29th Annual CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Conference Proceedings and Extended Abstracts
PublisherAssociation for Computing Machinery
Pages1979-1988
Number of pages10
ISBN (Print)9781450302289
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2011
Externally publishedYes

Publication series

NameConference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - Proceedings

Keywords

  • Applied behaviour analysis
  • Behavioural psychology
  • Education
  • Educational games
  • Games design
  • Psychology
  • Serious games

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