SEAMLESS LEARNING IN SERIOUS GAMES

How to Improve Seamless Learning-content Integration in Serious Games

Viktor Wendel, Stefan G

obel and Ralf Steinmetz

Multimedia Communication Labs - KOM, TU Darmstadt, Rundeturmstr. 10, 64283 Darmstadt, Germany

Keywords:

Serious games, Digital educational games, Game design, Seamless learning, Assessment integration.

Abstract:

Although the concept of Serious Games and Digital Educational Games (DEGs) is not new, many of those are

either not accepted as real games by players due to a lack of fun or they are not accepted by professionals -

such as teachers or trainers - as a true alternative to traditional forms of learning due to insufﬁcient didactic

concepts and learning efﬁciency. A major reason for this is one of the grand challenges in Serious Games:

Assessment integration, i.e. seamless integration of learning content and seamless and non-disruptive eval-

uation of learning success during play. Based on an analysis of the state of the art, we formulate a list of

guiding principles for DEG design. Hereby the aspects of seamless integration of learning content into a game

regarding game genre, the proper degree of realism, active and passive game elements, player evaluation and

feedback, adaptation and personalization as well as learner types are considered. Furthermore, three award-

winning Serious Games/DEGs are discussed with respect to these guiding principles and underlying methods

and concepts for assessment integration are analyzed.

1 MOTIVATION

The concept of Serious Games in the form of DEGs

has been proposed as a promising instrument to sup-

port traditional learning in addition to one-to-many

learning as it is common in schools today. One of the

major arguments for the use of games for education

is the possibility to use the motivation which is inher-

ited in games to motivate students to learn (Prensky,

2003; Gee, 2003). As soon as the authors and game

designers succeed to wrap up the learning content in

an exciting and playful game, learning could be rather

motivating and fascinating than boring. However, as

stated by Encarnacao (Encarnac¸

ao, 2009), ”Serious

Games [...] lack both the public acceptance of being

generally a value-add as well as large audiences to

design and market towards. The proof of value-add

so far has been stiﬂed by the need for scientiﬁc evi-

dence that a Serious Game had a skill augmentation

or behavior change impact on its players.” Therefore

most of today’s educational games are not considered

as a good alternative or helpful instrument to support

traditional learning. The reasons for this are twofold:

First, many of those games are not accepted by teach-

ers because they do not contain and present the learn-

ing content properly which results in games which

may be fun but do not equip students with knowledge.

Second, there is an amount of games which contain

the proper learning content but students do not like to

play them because they are not fun. The main prob-

lem is to balance the learning and the gaming portions

of DEGs in a way such that the game is fun and at

the same time the learning content is integrated in a

meaningful way without a disrupture of gaming parts

caused by the learning parts (seamless learning). Fab-

ricatore states in (Fabricatore, 2000) that ”[...] learn-

ing processes must not be framed by an entertaining

activity, but rather embedded in a genuine gaming

activity, with no unnatural barrier separating learn-

ing from gaming.” Based on the literature review in

Section 2, in Section 3 we propose a list of guiding

principles for designing DEGs without an ”unnatural

barrier separating learning and gaming”. Hereby, we

focus on the problem of an insufﬁcient integration of

learning content into a game which leads to undesired

disruptions in gameplay. Our guiding principles are

a step towards making DEGs which are both appeal-

ing to students and also provide the learning content

in the desired way. With this requirement met, future

Serious Games for education may be more accepted

both by players/students and pupils and by profes-

sionals/teachers. In Section 4 we discuss our ap-

proach in the context of three well known and award

winning Serious Games/DEGs. Finally, Section 5

219

Wendel V., Göbel S. and Steinmetz R..

SEAMLESS LEARNING IN SERIOUS GAMES - How to Improve Seamless Learning-content Integration in Serious Games.

DOI: 10.5220/0003312402190224

In Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Computer Supported Education (CSEDU-2011), pages 219-224

ISBN: 978-989-8425-49-2

 2011 SCITEPRESS (Science and Technology Publications, Lda.)

concludes this work with a brief summary and out-

look for further research activities in this ﬁeld.

2 RELATED WORK

Recently, several approaches and design models for

Serious Games and DEGs have been elaborated. Said

proposed the engaging Multimedia Design Model for

Children (Said, 2004). The model, which is based on

a study with 24 children using the video game The

Sims, presents ﬁve factors which are necessary to cre-

ate an engaging experience for children. These factors

are ”Simulation interaction”, ”Construct interaction”,

”Immediacy”, ”Feedback”, and ”Goals”. Simulation

interaction allows children to roleplay, whereas Con-

struct interaction allows them to build and create. Im-

mediacy means that the system is transparent, feed-

back should be immediate, and goals should either be

set clear or be set by the children themselves.

Barendregt and Bekker proposed a framework

for design guidelines for adventure games address-

ing young children (Barendregt and Bekker, 2004).

Based on the ”Interaction Cycle” (Andre et al., 2001),

their approach provides guidelines for making a game

easy to use and for creating an appropriate level of

challenge for young children.

In (Kiili, 2005), Kiili proposed a model for de-

signing and analyzing educational games facilitating

the ﬂow experience. The model is described as a loop

of created challenges for which the player must ﬁnd

solutions in an unstructured idea generation phase

(chaotic creativity) before testing those solutions and

observing the outcomes. The problem is to balance

the challenges and to increase the difﬁculty when the

player is getting better (ﬂow).

The Game Object Model (Amory and Seagram,

2003; Amory, 2007) by Amory represents a model

which combines teaching theory and game design.

Pedagogical elements and aspects like fun, drama,

challenge, critical reﬂection and practical exercise are

deﬁned as abstract interfaces which are used by the

game designers with pedagogic expertise. In contrast,

the gaming objects like GUI, sound, and interactions

are deﬁned as concrete interfaces. These are inte-

grated into the gameplay by the game developers.

Apart from the complete design models described

above, several approaches and ideas can be found in

literature on how to better integrate learning content

in Serious Games. In (Kelly et al., 2007), Kelly et al.

describe how to create a Serious Game for teaching

immunology to high school students. In their game

”Immune Attack”, they try to make players learn by

interacting rather than by reading. Additionally, play-

ers are able to ask questions or to view images and

videos whenever they want to.

In (Kriz, 2003), Kriz states that simulation games

are perfectly applicable to bridge the gap between the-

ory and practice. By playing simulations, students

can perform experimental learning. They can learn by

themselves, try different ways and be able to ﬁnd an

own solution for a problem, thus applying the knowl-

edge to be taught.

The models described above represent different

approaches for a Serious Games design with differ-

ent focusses, regarding various aspects of either game

design, educational game design, or motivation in

games. However, none of them takes all aspects of

Serious Games design into account.

3 DIGITAL EDUCATIONAL

GAMES DESIGN

The results of the related work emphasize the need

to consider multiple aspects and design issues in or-

der to achieve a seamless integration of learning and

gaming. In this section, we look at the design issues

concerning learning and gaming as well as personal-

ization and adaptation in detail and provide guiding

principles for DEG design supporting seamless learn-

ing.

3.1 Learning

The ﬁrst design issue when creating a DEG should

be the question of what will be the learning content

to be taught within the game. This deﬁnes the later

choice of an appropriate genre, the degree of realism,

evaluation methods, and adaptation algorithms. Fur-

thermore, it is especially important how the learning

content is presented to the player and in which way

it is tested. If it is presented too intrusive the game-

play may be disrupted, if it is integrated too seamless

it may be overlooked (Wechselberger, 2008). The key

to integrating the learning content seamlessly is to in-

tegrate it into the gameplay or to make it part of the

story. In the ideal case, the player does not even notice

that he/she is being taught (stealth learning).

Assessment of the learner’s progress is necessary

both for the teacher/trainer and for the players them-

selves. The latter need an evaluation in order to rec-

ognize errors and to further improve. Feedback, e.g.

in form of rankings, might be a motivation. Feed-

back is a very important element in the development

of Serious Games. In (Johnson et al., 2005) they state

”Good games provide users with feedback on their ac-

tions, so that they know how well they are doing and

CSEDU 2011 - 3rd International Conference on Computer Supported Education

220

can seek to improve their performance.” To evaluate

the player performance it is necessary to test him/her.

This can be achieved by interjecting tests at certain

points in the game like multiple-choice-tests, ﬁll-in-

the-blank texts or simple questions. However, most

of these forms severely interrupt the gameplay and

are a major source of displeasure. Therefore, it is

absolutely necessary to integrate evaluation methods

directly into the content of the game. For example,

questions can be integrated into a dialog with another

character in a historical roleplay game. To improve

immersion, the player’s answers could directly affect

the other character’s reaction and the further pace of

the story. This can give the player the feeling of act-

ing in a ﬁctive world rather than being tested. In ad-

dition to this visible form of evaluation, an invisible

evaluation in form of logging the player’s behavior

and performance is possible. For instance, a teacher

can derive conclusions from the number of repetitions

necessary for certain tasks or the time spent to solve

them. Besides, providing feedback may not disrupt

the game. Contrary, it should be wrapped up in the

game. In a simulation, for example, the player needs

to see that a decision was wrong by the consequences

of his/her actions.

A promising concept for evaluating player perfor-

mance and giving feedback is the concept of game

mastering (Tychsen et al., 2005). A game master is a

person which participates in the game in a meta role.

The game master can observe, adjudicate, and inﬂu-

ence the game. Being a human person, the game mas-

ter has much more freedom in evaluating the perfor-

mance of a player and giving useful feedback. Such a

game master can evaluate innovative player solutions

which the game itself cannot recognize.

3.2 Gaming

The game genre is essential not only for gameplay but

also for the related learning content. As Yee showed

in (Yee, 2006), there are age-related and gender-

related differences why people play certain types of

games. Additionally, various genres offer different

advantages for different learning content. In a well

designed roleplay game, the player immerses in the

(ﬁctive) world and identiﬁes with his/her character.

This makes the roleplay genre very suitable for teach-

ing history. Historical scenarios could be created so

that the player could ”play” and experience history

instead of just reading about it.

The simulation genre describes games which sim-

ulate (real) world procedures in a playful manner. Ex-

amples include ﬂight simulators, city creation and ad-

ministration simulations, and simulations for various

business branches. Physical or technical learning con-

tent could be taught excellently using a simulation.

Simulation of physical or technical facts offering op-

tions to adjust parameters and to view the conse-

quences provides a very promising way of experimen-

tal learning. Furthermore, economy processes can be

modeled best in a simulation, again enabling players

to experiment and view the consequences.

Strategy games can be used to train teamplay and

social interactions like negotiation and communica-

tion. In a strategy game, the players try to win by

designing and applying a superior strategy. This in-

volves a lot of creative work which, if the game is

well designed, can be used for learning. Furthermore,

the competitive nature of this game genre serves as an

additional motivation.

Shooters and Shoot-em-ups are very suitable to

train cognitive skills, reaction, hand-eye-coordination

and spatial skills (Subrahmanyam and Greenﬁeld,

1994).

Logic/puzzle games are especially suited for

teaching logical structures and ways of thinking by

solving riddles, etc. This type of games can also be

integrated in other games and genres in form of a

minigame or by a native combination with other gen-

res.

Apart from the choice of the right genre, the

choice of the right degree of realism can have a deep

impact on immersion. It should be chosen accord-

ing to learning context and game genre. For logic

games, a realistic look is not important. Instead an

abstraction is often more sound. For historical role-

play games however, a higher degree of immersion

is desirable. The player should experience ﬂow and

loose him-/herself in the game. A higher degree of

realism in form of realistic graphics and appropriate

sound might help to improve immersion. Regarding

simulations it is necessary to differentiate between a

degree of realism regarding the objects and processes

to be simulated and the representation. The objects,

concepts and processes to be modeled must be de-

picted in detail, whereas the overall degree of realism

can be secondary and may be either realistic or ab-

stract. The highest degree of freedom is given within

strategy games and shoot-em-ups. In those genres the

degree of realism is primarily used to achieve an ap-

propriate atmosphere.

3.3 Adaptation and Personalization

In order to meet the expectations and characteristics

of individual learners/players, methods for adapta-

tion and personalization should be considered. For a

player who is bored or overstrained, the ”barrier” be-

SEAMLESS LEARNING IN SERIOUS GAMES - How to Improve Seamless Learning-content Integration in Serious

Games

221

tween gaming and learning is even more visible than

for one who experiences a good degree of challenge.

Therefore, it is important to measure the performance

of the learner and to adapt the degree of difﬁculty to

the player, so that the player is neither bored nor over-

strained by the difﬁculty of the tasks. Also, a set of

tasks/questions of various degrees of difﬁculty has to

be created and an adaptation mechanism has to be de-

signed. In (G

obel et al., 2010), an adaptation mecha-

nism for player and learner models was proposed. It

can be applied to adventures and other scene-based

games and takes into account learning, gaming and

narration simultaneously.

Moreover, it should be considered how individual

learner types may be addressed. Some students prefer

to learn on their own, whereas others need more guid-

ance. This may also greatly depend on the learner’s

age. For example, children at the age between 6 and

12 prefer to make things alone or with friends (Slavin,

1997). For such children, an ingame guide provid-

ing help and tips may be disturbing, whereas younger

children need a more direct guidance (Barendregt and

Bekker, 2004).

3.4 Active and Passive Elements

We can divide the elements of a game into active ele-

ments which can be altered or inﬂuenced by the player

and passive elements which can not be changed by

the player. Active elements provide certain degrees of

freedom. In a roleplay game the most important active

element is the played character. The player usually

can change the character’s appearance, acquire skills,

etc. In a simulation game, the simulation objects are

active elements. Those can be adjusted by the player.

Passive elements in contrary provide a constant setup

for the game.

The learning content can as well be either active

or passive. If it may not be altered, it must be pas-

sive. For example, in a historical roleplay game the

story which teaches about historical facts should not

be changed. Subsequently, it should be a passive

element. Other parts of the story however may be

changed. In a simulation, a player may experiment

in the form of ”what if...”, thus also producing wrong

facts. An interesting example is a Sid Meiers Civ-

ilization IV scenario

, settled in the Roman age at

the time of Vespasian, developed by Dr. Shawn Gra-

ham. It allows to shape history differently, clearly al-

tering learning content in order to teach how easily

the events of that time could have been different.

http://planetcivilization.gamespy.com/View.php?view=

Articles.Detail&id=33

A seamless integration of the learning content may

be achieved by a balanced integration into active and

passive elements. If the learning content is entirely

embedded in passive elements whereas the player has

a lot of active elements to interact with, the learning

content will stand out and be a disruption of game-

play. If however the learning content is entirely em-

bedded in active elements, there is a danger that the

player changes important facts.

3.5 DEG Design Guiding Principles

Resulting from the analysis above, we summarize our

experimental DEG design guiding principles. The

guidelines are ordered in the way the decisions should

be made.

• Deﬁne the learning content and the target group.

• Based on the learning content, the target group,

the target group’s age, and the desired gameplay,

decide on which genre to use.

• Decide on the desired degree of realism.

• Decide which parts of the learning content may

be integrated in active elements and which ones

in passive elements.

• Deﬁne how evaluation will be performed (active,

logging).

• Deﬁne the methods of feedback and if a game

master is reasonable/helpful.

• Decide how the degree of difﬁculty can be adapted

to the player.

• Decide which other adaptation and personaliza-

tion algorithms ﬁt best to the game (player mod-

eling, ingame guide, etc.).

4 EVALUATED GAMES

In this section we examine three award-winning Seri-

ous Games/DEGs. We extract information about the

learning content, the genre, active and passive ele-

ments, the degree of reality, the integration of eval-

uation methods and the addressed types of learners.

Furthermore, we describe how motivation is gener-

ated and if there is a ”barrier” between learning and

gaming.

EnerCities

represents a Serious Game which is

designed to call attention to energy-awareness in city

planning. EnerCities is a SimCity-like game which

claims to be the ﬁrst Serious Game on Facebook and

http://www.enercities.eu/

CSEDU 2011 - 3rd International Conference on Computer Supported Education

222

is nominated for ”Best ICT for Energy Efﬁciency

Project Award 2009”. The learning content contains

energy-awareness, energy economy, and energy con-

servation. The genre is a typical simulation. An active

element is the space for decisions about what kind of

building to place when and where. The learning con-

tent is integrated both actively and passively. Passive

elements include hints and tips about energy (saving),

active elements are contained in the building options.

Deciding on using alternative energy technologies or

to upgrade factories with improved isolation or recy-

cling facilities in order to advance in the game im-

plicitly applies the learning content. The (graphical)

degree of reality is rather low which is common for

simulations. Evaluation is performed by a stiff points

system given for buildings and upgrades. Feedback is

given by a highscore system generated from the eval-

uation. There are no adaptation mechanisms, but an

ingame advisor works as a guide providing hints and

tips without disrupting gameplay. An ongoing moti-

vation is generated by a ranking. However, it is pos-

sible to get a very high score by violating some of the

principles which are to be taught. This is an indica-

tion for an insufﬁcient balancing of learning content

and gameplay.

Winterfest

is the Serious Game/DEG which won

the ”Lara Games-Award 2010

”. It was designed for

illiterates and people with poor arithmetic. The game

is a classical adventure set in a medieval environment.

The graphics are comic-like (cf. Figure 1), which

is a low degree of realism but is very common for

adventure games and ﬁts very good into the overall

mood. Throughout the game several exercises have to

be solved. Those contain basic mathematics, reading,

and spelling. The learning content is entirely passive

and cannot be changed or inﬂuenced. It is presented

in the form of tests which are well integrated into

the game and its story. Feedback is given instantly.

Wrong solutions are corrected at once by marking er-

rors so that the player may correct them instantly. The

game is clearly made for a learner who prefers/needs

guidance. The player has a companion (a rat) which

gives much advice and often tells the player what to

do next. An explanation is given before an exercise

is performed so that the player is able to acquire nec-

essary knowledge before he/she is tested. However,

although the exercises are included in the game story,

due to their rigid form they are still a disruption of

gameplay. Motivation is provided by a suspenseful

and immersive story making the player eager for the

story’s outcome.

http://www.lernspiel-winterfest.de/

http://www.lara-award.de/

Figure 1: Screenshot of Winterfest.

The ”Global Conﬂicts:”-series

is a set of games

with the goal to draw attention to deprived areas

all over the globe. The series won several awards

in different categories. The genre is best explained

as a 3D-adventure/roleplay game. In ”Global Con-

ﬂicts:Palestine”, the player takes the role of a re-

porter preparing an article about the social problems

in Jerusalem. Therefore, he/she can talk to differ-

ent people and gain insight into the different points

of view. The learning content is entirely integrated

in the game and mediated almost subliminally. How-

ever, there are almost no degrees of freedom for the

player. There are only few locations/people to deal

with and interaction is limited on observation and di-

alogues with a very limited number of dialog options.

The degree of realism is pretty high as the graphics

are rather realistic. The setting on the other hand is

rather unrealistic as the city appears to be nearly dead.

There are no adaptation or personalization mecha-

nisms. The player is guided by some ingame hints

telling the player what to do next. At the end of the

game, the player combines the collected facts to an

article or argumentation. The article/argumentation is

then evaluated and the result is presented to the player.

The social topics are presented excellently and do not

disrupt the gameplay. However, the gameplay itself is

very sparse so that ”Global Conﬂicts” appears rather

as an interactive education story than as a game.

5 CONCLUSIONS

In this paper we analyzed design guidelines and mod-

els for the design of Serious Games/DEGs found in

http://www.globalconﬂicts.eu

SEAMLESS LEARNING IN SERIOUS GAMES - How to Improve Seamless Learning-content Integration in Serious

Games

223

literature. We then derived and formulated a list of

guiding principles for DEG design which especially

addressed the problem of a seamless integration of

learning content in Serious Games without a disrup-

tion of gameplay. Three award-winning well known

Serious Games were examined according to design is-

sues compared to our design guiding principles. Al-

though those games are well designed, they all still

have drawbacks in the seamless integration of learn-

ing content. Either the game is disrupted in a disturb-

ing way, the learning content is too invisible or the

game lacks a deeper gameplay. More work is neces-

sary in order to solve this issue which can be a sub-

stantial contribution to a broader acceptance of Seri-

ous Games both in public and among teachers. Cur-

rently our list is not intended to be exhaustive. Al-

though we ultimately intend to create a design guide-

line for a seamless learning and assessment integra-

tion in DEGs, we do not believe that a universal

”cookbook” for the design of DEGs is realistic. Next

steps include the test of our model in various Serious

Games to be created and to reﬁne it if necessary. Also

a user-centered evaluation in various speciﬁc ﬁelds of

application is necessary.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The research and development introduced in this work

is funded by the ”Hessisches Ministerium f

ur Wis-

senschaft und Kunst” in the context of the HMWK-

project ”Development and Evaluation of Serious

Games in Education at Hessian Institutions of Higher

Education and Further Development of Authoring

Technologies for Serious Games”.

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