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Interesting, but not Necessarily Effective: Testing a Serious Game with Socially Disadvantaged Children

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Games and Learning Alliance (GALA 2015)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNISA,volume 9599))

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Abstract

Serious games are often hoped to outperform conventional instruction techniques particularly in educationally challenging contexts. The present study tested a German serious game designed to teach fundamentals of civic engagement with a class of elementary school children (N = 26, mean age 10 years) from a socially disadvantaged urban population. Findings suggest that the young players liked the new mode of learning, but effects of playing on domain knowledge were not observed. We discuss the results with regard to the preconditions that serious games have to meet just as conventional instruction techniques when players/learners are facing specific challenges such as social disadvantages.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Journalism and Communication Research, Hanover University of Music, Drama, and Media, Expo Plaza 12, 30539, Hanover, Germany

    Christoph Klimmt

  2. Department of Communication, University of Münster, Bispinghof 9-14, 48143, Münster, Germany

    Semhar Ogbazion

Authors
  1. Christoph Klimmt
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  2. Semhar Ogbazion
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Correspondence to Christoph Klimmt .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Università di Genova, Genoa, Italy

    Alessandro De Gloria

  2. Information and Computer Science, University of Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Remco Veltkamp

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Klimmt, C., Ogbazion, S. (2016). Interesting, but not Necessarily Effective: Testing a Serious Game with Socially Disadvantaged Children. In: De Gloria, A., Veltkamp, R. (eds) Games and Learning Alliance. GALA 2015. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 9599. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-40216-1_25

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-40216-1_25

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-40215-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-40216-1

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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