A Design Framework for Experiential History Games

Abstract

This article presents empirical studies of a serious game focusing on various aspects of the American Civil War. We developed and deployed four distinct modules of our game for use within a fifth grade classroom in Virginia, USA. Of the first three modules deployed, only one lead to statistically significant results from pre-test to post-test. We used qualitative information from these first three trials to develop a design framework for experiential serious games of this form. We then developed and tested a fourth module by applying this framework and found significant learning improvements with this fourth module. This paper presents our game, results of empirical studies within a fifth grade classroom, and our proposed design framework identifying key aspects of the learning environment. Our results provide support for our hypothesis that application of this framework leads to increased learning gains. While we do not suggest that our framework is complete or exhaustive, we believe that designers of similar educational games can benefit by employing the principles of this framework directly.