Abstract
Educational games’ effectiveness is dependent on the harmony between pedagogy and entertainment. However, finding the balance between abstract concepts such as fun with concrete ones such as learning gains is difficult. This difficult task lacks prescriptive methodologies to guide conceptualizing and communicating the specifications of a standard educational game. This research sought to develop an ontological structural model applied to produce the specifications of educational games. The model is beneficial to educational game designers by facilitating them to make informed design decisions through careful mapping of learning and game elements, improving the produced games’ quality.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Arnab, S., Clarke, S.: Towards a trans-disciplinary methodology for a game-based intervention development process. Br. J. Edu. Technol. 48(2), 279–312 (2017)
Arnab, S., et al.: Mapping learning and game mechanics for serious games analysis. Br. J. Edu. Technol. 46(2), 391–411 (2015)
Callaghan, M., Savin-Baden, M., McShane, N., Eguíluz, A.G.: Mapping learning and game mechanics for serious games analysis in engineering education. IEEE Trans. Emerg. Top. Comput. 5(1), 77–83 (2017)
Carvalho, M.B., et al.: An activity theory-based model for serious games analysis and conceptual design. Comput. Educ. 87, 166–181 (2015)
De Freitas, S., Oliver, M.: A four-dimensional framework for the evaluation and assessment of educational games (2005)
De Troyer, O., Van Broeckhoven, F., Vlieghe, J.: Linking serious game narratives with pedagogical theories and pedagogical design strategies. J. Comput. High. Educ. 29(3), 549–573 (2017)
Engström, H., Brusk, J., Erlandsson, P.: Prototyping tools for game writers. Comput. Games J. 7(3), 153–172 (2018)
Ferguson, C., van den Broek, E.L., van Oostendorp, H.: On the role of interaction mode and story structure in virtual reality serious games. Comput. Educ. 143, 103671 (2020)
Furuichi, M., Aibara, M., Yanagisawa, K.: Design and implementation of serious games for training and education. In: 2014 UKACC International Conference on Control (CONTROL), pp. 691–695. IEEE (2014)
Ildephonce, I., Mugisa, E., Allen, C.: Learning objects in instructional serious game design. In: 2018 IEEE 18th International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies (ICALT), pp. 119–121. IEEE (2018)
Kalloo, V., Mohan, P., Kinshuk, K.: A technique for mapping mathematics content to game design. Int. J. Serious Games 2(4), 73–92 (2015)
Naul, E., Liu, M.: Why story matters: a review of narrative in serious games. J. Educ. Comput. Res. 58(3), 687–707 (2020)
Perez-Colado, I.J., Perez-Colado, V.M., Martínez-Ortiz, I., Freire-Moran, M., Fernández-Manjón, B.: UAdventure: the eAdventure reboot: combining the experience of commercial gaming tools and tailored educational tools. In: 2017 IEEE Global Engineering Education Conference (EDUCON), pp. 1755–1762. IEEE (2017)
Tavinor, G.: Tension and opportunity: creativity in the video gaming medium. In: Video Games and Creativity, pp. 263–284. Elsevier (2015)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
1 Electronic supplementary material
Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2022 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this paper
Cite this paper
Ildephonce, I., Allen, C. (2022). An Ontological Model to Design the Specifications of Effective Educational Games. In: Kiili, K., Antti, K., de Rosa, F., Dindar, M., Kickmeier-Rust, M., Bellotti, F. (eds) Games and Learning Alliance. GALA 2022. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 13647. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-22124-8_35
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-22124-8_35
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-22123-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-22124-8
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)