The Evaluation of Serious Games Supporting Creativity through Student Labs

Abstract

The success of the European economy is to a large extent depending on the ability of European industry to foster innovation and to develop new product and services. Innovation is perceived to be Europe’s key to economic success in the current market environment in which strong competition from both the established and emerging Asian economies concern companies and politics. A key role is here played by people in the culture and creative sector as a driver for new ideas. It is the aim of the Cultural and Creative Industry (CCI) to move towards a creative economy by catalyzing the spill-over effects of CCIs on a wide range of economic and social contexts, such as manufacturing, education, etc. Creative thinking, especially when performed collaboratively, is an engaging activity that fosters participation, discussion and deep reflection about real-world problems. Creative thinking is thus one of the competencies expected from tomorrow’s worker. These are all highly desirable characteristics in any learning process, and represent the core of the rapidly increasing academic effort towards using educational games to engage students in situated deep learning activities. This article presents a game used for stimulating the creative thinking process among students aiming at facilitating the application of creativity as part of the learning process.