Undercover: Non-Invasive, Adaptive Interventions in Educational Games

Computer games are extremely successful and popular – and the potential of using this medium for educational purposes is increasingly recognised and researched. To keep the engaging character of a computer game, an educational game needs to appropriately contextualise learning activities in the game and its narrative in order to retain flow and engagement of the gaming experience. The realisation of good educational games furthermore requires that such new learning technologies are appropriate for all students and ensure learning opportunities with individually appropriate levels of challenge, which calls for adaptation mechanisms to learners’ abilities and motivation. In the present paper we present adaptation mechanisms that are strongly embedded into an educational game. Personalisation of learning and gaming experiences is realised in a two-fold manner, targeting a learner’s competence as well as motivational state. The described non-invasive, adaptive interventions are researched, implemented, and evaluated in the context of the European research project 80Days.