Key Elements of Educational Games

As mentioned in a previous post, I asked educators to choose 5 elements they felt were most important to make an effective learning game. I threw out a few suggestions, but encouraged respondents to add to my list.

The two features that tied for first place were "engages students and gets them excited about learning" and "explicit goal (win objective) and a clear map for achieving that goal." This second winning feature isn't something I had in my list. I posed this question in three different online communities, and this second feature was mentioned (unprompted) in each of the three communities.

The full list of features mentioned as key for learning games are listed below.
    
    •    Engages students and gets them excited about learning (tied for first)
    •    Explicit goal (win objective) and a clear map for achieving that goal (tied for first)
    •    
Provides instructive feedback (tied for second)
    •    
Adapts to student performance (tied for second)
    •    
Requires students to use reasoning skills rather than simply answering factual questions. (tied for second)
    •    
Some levels require collaboration with other students either online or in person (when possible)
    •    
Set in a real-world context (only if it increases transference)
    •    
Encourage further exploration and learning on the topic outside of the game environment.
    •    
Provides unlimited practice (but with different numbers/scenarios)
    •    
Pedagogy is integrated into the technology
    •    
Game mechanics are intrinsically, deeply connected to the target concepts
    •    
Customizable so students can be “assigned” activities
 
My original question was to choose 5 features that are important for making an effective learning game. The top five features in this list all tied for either first or second place, so I feel they are a good reflection of what educators feel are important in learning games.

In my post on Games and Engagement, I mentioned a program called iSTART that helps improve students' reading comprehension. The developers of this program added gaming elements to increase student interest and motivation. On it's own, the program was successful in improving reading comprehension, but in the long term, students got bored and disinterested. The features that they added were:

• feedback
• fantasy
• personalization
• choice
• curiosity

On the surface, these don't appear to match what teachers chose as key elements. Based on what I've read about the program, I can say that the fantasy, personalization, and elements to arouse curiosity provided engagement. Choice and feedback is tied into the explicit goal. Students choose what activities to work on knowing the goal and receive feedback based on their performance. Prior to adding the gaming features, the program already provided instructive feedback, adapted to student performance, and required reasoning skills.

Interestingly, the program already included most of the other elements teachers chose as important which gives you some idea of why the program was initially successful from the start. Adding the other more visually obvious gaming features focused more an engagement--the key element that keeps students interested long term.

Games and Engagement

Recently I asked educators to name the top 5 features necessary for an educational game. I am currently grappling with this question. I've seen a lot of research about games that tends to boil down to -- We intuitively know that games help students learn, but the only data we've collected shows that games improve motivation.  Data showing both an increase in motivation and in academic success (in whatever way you want to define that) either doesn't exist or I just haven't found it yet.

So I posed this question to mine the intuition of educators who feel that games help students learn. I asked them to choose the top 5 features necessary to make a game that is both fun and educational. I knew I'd get a wide variety of responses, but I hoped the "cream" to rise to the top.

The feature that received the most attention was about gaining student attention -- a game should engage students and get them excited about learning. Of course, that's why we all play games. A good game engages some part of our brain whether it be the thrill of competition or an interest in dominating the world. ;-) While I know the importance of engagement, part of me wishes that what we teach would be exciting enough to get student attention. Is the best part about a game is that it provides a carrot to capture student interest? Do we run the risk of games becoming a crutch or will games serve the purpose of providing engagement until a genuine interest develops?


I recently discovered the research of Dr. Danielle McNamara regarding the reading comprehension program iSTART. iSTART is a digital reading program that has been shown to be successful with helping students improve their comprehension skills. The only problem with iSTART is that students quickly lost interest. The program was tweaked by adding gaming elements. Some elements distracted from student learning, while others made students pay more attention. The final product, iSTART-ME, include the most beneficial gaming elements that heightened student interest while not detracting from student learning.

This kind of motivation, or engagement, I can get behind. When there are skills students need to master, and the only means of mastery is practice, and practice can get a little boring at times...bring in the carrot. Isn't that what we all do when we attempt to start a new habit or make changes? 

Would you like a carrot? Check out Daily Feats! It is a site where you can earn points for doing those little things you know you need to do but just need a little motivation to do. Ok, it's not as motivating or engaging as a game. It is just one example that shows we gravitate toward experiences that give us some sort of reward or that respond to our actions in a positive way.

There's more I want to say about the survey I did with educators about games, but this is enough to chew on for today. You'll see more about this in future posts.