Serious Games in Education

This study investigates to what extent serious games support learning processes. We compared the abilities of two groups of high school students to answer questions on a subject that they were recently instructed on. The first group received its instructions by means of a serious game, the second group by means of a text. We discovered that the group that received its instructions via a serious game performed significantly better than the text group in solving the assignments. Surprisingly, the group that received its instructions via a text indicated that they were better motivated. Further analysis showed that clear gender differences were underlying these results: males benefitted most from instruction via a serious game, while females were better motivated by a text. From our results we conclude that serious games can be more effective in learning processes than written texts, but that they do not necessarily motivate students better than a textbook. SERIOUS GAMES, TEXTBOOKS, EDUCATION