Read the Master's Thesis here: ntnuopen for more detailed information around the game, studies, and technical aspects.
Learning games tend to either be enjoyable and lack a learning effect or have solid educational foundations without being fun to play. Striking a balance between the two sides is challenging and requires careful consideration of design decisions. Collaborative elements have long been a mainstay in video games, and utilising them in a learning game could potentially result in a game that engages and educates players.
Following a literature review on learning theory, game design, and current learning games, a concept for our game, Escapade, was created. Escapade is a game that lets players see a picture of a historical event and team up to figure out what event it is, when it happened, and where it took place. After multiple design iterations, the game was developed into a prototype that could be used to assess its effect on students.
An experiment was held in two upper secondary school history classes where 36 students played the game. To examine the effect of the game’s inclusion of the jigsaw method, the two classes played the game with different rules. The jigsaw method splits a topic into pieces and distributes them among students, forcing students to communicate to obtain all the pieces. We implemented this in our experiment by not allowing participants to look at each other’s screens in one class (the jigsaw class) while encouraging it in the other (the non-jigsaw class).
The resulting data on participants’ motivation, engagement, enjoyment and perceived learning was then analysed and discussed. The experiment revealed that the game had a positive impact on participant motivation and that they found it engaging and enjoyable. The inclusion of the jigsaw method led to higher levels of perceived learning among participants, with those in the jigsaw class also reporting that the game could bring them more value than those in the non-jigsaw class. We also found that interest in video games and history significantly impacted how participants experienced the game positively.