Foundation for Measuring
Engagement in Educational Games
Presenter: Che-Yu Lin
Advisor: Min-Puu Chen
Date: December 1,2008
Kristian, K., & Timo, L. (2008). Foundation for Measuring Engagement in Educational Games. Journal of
Interactive Learning Research, 19(3), 469–488.
Introduction(1/3)
• It appears that educational games are seen as
being magic new tools that will solve the
problems of computer assisted learning.
• Examination of typical educational games
indicates that games are primarily used as
tools for supporting the practice of factual
information transmission in education.
• If educational games are developed without
an appropriate pedagogical basis, the
investments may be considered wasted.
Introduction(2/3)
• The field of educational technology lacks
research on:
- how to design game environments that foster
knowledge construction
- deepen understanding and problem-solving while
being engaging and entertaining at the same time
• The main purpose of this paper is to validate
the flow antecedents included in the
experiential gaming model and to test a
constructed GameFlow questionnaire.
Introduction(3/3)
• The main purpose of the present study is to
test two hypotheses derived from the
experiential gaming model.
- all the flow antecedents included in the model would
have positive effects on the flow experience
- the flow experience has a positive impact on learning
and exploratory behaviour
Foundation
• A flow theory (Csikszentmihalyi, 1991) that
provides a universal model of enjoyment.
• Experiential Gaming Model (modified from
Kiili, 2005a)
- experiential learning (Kolb, 1984)
- constructivism (Phillips, 1995)
• Malone’s motivation theory (1981)
- challenge
- curiosity
- control
- fantasy
Experiential Gaming Model
設計方式
學習者需求
設計循環
遊戲循環
The elements of flow in the
educational game context
RealGame player interface
Methods(1/2)
• Participants (N = 92) were the students of
Turku School of Economics.
• The age of the participants varied between
20-30 years.
• RealGame business simulation game
(BioCounter Ltd).
• The GameFlow questionnaire, using 5-point
Likert-type response format, can be divided
into three parts.
Methods(2/2)
• The reliability of the questionnaire was
calculated using Cronbach’s alpha estimates.
• RealGame was played twice with each of the
student groups.
- introductory
- a short pre-assignment
Results(1/4)
General experiences about RealGame
• The gaming experience was perceived as
being intensive, interesting, motivating as well
as engaging, and immersive.
• Most of the players felt that the gaming
session was too short and they would like to
play RealGame again in the future.
Results(2/4)
Reliability of the GameFlow Questionnaire
Results(3/4)
Examining the Connection between Flow Antecedents and Flow State
Results(4/4)
Examining the Connection between Flow State and Flow Consequences
• Results indicate that there was a loose
positive connection between flow experience
and learning.(r=.29; p=.005)
• It is noteworthy that in this study, learning
was not directly measured, but was examined
by asking participants’ feelings about learning.
• The results indicate that there was a loose
positive connection between flow experience
and exploratory behaviour.(r=.24; p=.024)
Conclusions(1/2)
• The constructed GameFlow questionnaire
needs to be further developed and validated
with larger sample sizes.(challenge, goals,
gamefulness and exploratory behaviour)
• Provide some base line evidence about the
positive relationship between flow experience
and learning.
• Educational games should stretch a player’s
mind to its limits in an effort to overcome
worthwhile challenges.
Conclusions(2/2)
• Flow inducing studying activities are not done
with the expectation of some future benefit,
but simply because the playing of an
educational game is itself the reward.
• The measurement of flow is important in the
game development process because it
provides a means for designing game
elements that support learning with games.