In the Future Metaverse, What Kind of UGC do Users Need?

With the COVID-19 pandemic, people's real-life interactions diminished, and the game-based metaverse platforms such as Minecraft and Roblox are on the rise. The main users of these platforms are teenagers, they generate content in a virtual environment, which can significantly increase the activity of the platform. However, the experience of User-Generated Content in the metaverse is not very good. So what kind of support do users need to improve the efficiency of generating content in the metaverse? To investigate teenage users' preferences and expectations of it, this paper interviewed 72 teenagers aged 12-22 who are familiar with the metaverse game, and distilled 4 suggestions that can help promote metaverse users to generate content. © 2023 IEEE.

Innovative Digital Practices and Globalization in Higher Education. Advances in Higher Education and Professional Development (AHEPD) Book Series

We are moving toward a future in which digital practices are becoming more ubiquitous. Also, there is evidence to suggest that innovative digital practices are changing the face of 21st-century learning environments. Critical to 21st-century teaching and learning success is continued emphasis on learner preferences, shaped by innovative digital technology-driven learning environments alongside teacher awareness, knowledge, and preparedness to deliver high-impact instruction using active learning pedagogies. Thus, the purposeful and selective use of digital learning tools in higher education and the incorporation of appropriate active learning pedagogies are pivotal to enhancing and supporting meaningful student learning. "Innovative Digital Practices and Globalization in Higher Education" explores innovative digital practices to enhance academic performance for digital learners and prepare qualified graduates who are competent to work in an increasingly global digital workplace. Global competence has become an essential part of higher education and professional development. As such, it is the responsibility of higher education institutions to prepare students with the knowledge, skills, and competencies required to compete in the digital and global market. Covering topics such as design thinking, international students, and digital teaching innovation, this premier reference source is an essential resource for pre-service and in-service teachers, educational technologists, instructional designers, faculty, administrators, librarians, researchers, and academicians.

Conducting educational escape rooms during a global pandemic

PurposeEscape room-based learning is a new educational game-based learning trend which embeds student learning within an exciting escape room scenario. Ordinarily these educational escape rooms are in a table-top format which involves learners decoding clues together around a table. In the age of a global pandemic [coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)] with stringent social distancing and lock-downs, this normal game modality was not possible and so an alternate online approach was required. Thus, this paper aims to study escape room activities during global pandemics.Design/methodology/approachIn this paper, the authors outline how these escape room activities have been taken online, in an synchronous virtual environment and evaluate the student perception of these escape rooms, in contrast to previous cohorts of students who completed escape rooms together in person.FindingsThe authors' results indicate that although students enjoy the escape room game-based learning environment, the remote nature of the activity means the students take longer to solve the puzzles. The students are also more likely to struggle in the activity and find them less engaging than the in-person escape room challenges.Originality/valueAlthough educational escape rooms have been devised for a variety of subjects and can be run through several different modalities (table-top, full rooms and online), this study compares different modalities (online vs table-top) for identical puzzles taken over different cohorts of students.

The Influence of Serious Games and Gamification in University Students of English as a Foreign Language

Many careers have changed since COVID-19 appeared. In education in particular, the use of ICT tools increased in quite a disorderly manner, and the expansion of these tools opened new opportunities to update the ways of teaching and learning. ICT tools have been used for a long time in education, but they have often been used just as support tools without any academic purpose and without achieving their full potential. If we focus on teaching foreign languages, ICT has given us the opportunity to see and experience other cultures, as well as to live experiences close to a real-life immersion, facilitating the understanding of the use of language and giving everyone a chance to learn in context. This does not only include videos or music;nowadays, we can use and connect many resources including videogames, social media, and blogs, among others. And here is where we can find great potential for development. In this context, the purpose of this paper is to present the plan for a doctoral thesis and its status, as well as some notes on the context, main motivation, literature, and methodology to be used for creating resources that help improve the 21st-century teaching and learning experience. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

Key issues and pedagogical implications in the design of Digital Educational Escape rooms

Educational Escape rooms are game-based environments that may involve students of all school orders in engaging learning experiences. COVID- 9 pandemic has increased the proliferation of escape rooms in a digital format whose use appeared meaningful for their generative effects on knowledge acquisition and on 21st century skills development. Nevertheless, the design of educational escape rooms is an essential process requiring a deep knowledge of both game design principles and learning design approaches. Moreover, teachers and educators willing to design and to experiment escape rooms with their students need to know how to connect these principles belonging to apparently distant fields and to balance them, to make these learning environments effective from an educational point of view and, at the same time, highly and intrinsically motivating. The aim of this contribution is to focus on the design related aspects of educational digital escape rooms, providing a pedagogical foundation and discussing implications for learning. A Design-Based Research (DBR) has been conducted, involving two cohorts of undergraduate students who attended the Game-based learning course in the last two academic years. The educational escape rooms designed by them in the two editions of the course, corresponding to two iterations of a DBR cycle, were compared to investigate if the progressive enhancement of the design approach has affected the quality of the realized educational escape rooms. From evaluation of DEERs designed by students a taxonomy was derived that, listing the main design characteristics for the development of DEERs, can be used as a tool that can guide educational designers in the development of effective DEERs, where game aspects are closely intertwined with the educational ones.

Kahoot, Quizizz, and Quizalize in the English Class and their Impact on Motivation

The Covid-19 pandemic changed the way education was being taught. Due to school closures to prevent the spread of the disease, the education system resorted to distance learning to grant students' learning process. This research article reports a mixed-method study on technological resources and their impact on motivation during online lessons. The study seeks to explore the students' perceptions regarding the implementation of some game-based learning platforms (Kahoot, Quizizz, and Quizalize) during their EFL virtual classes and to determine the impact of these platforms on students' motivation toward language learning. A convergent parallel design was implemented to gather quantitative and qualitative data from the twenty-seven participants of the study simultaneously. A four-point Likert scale questionnaire and a focus group were the instruments employed to collect this statistical and descriptive information. The results show that the students perceived Kahoot, Quizizz, and Quizalize as useful, entertaining, fun, and engaging tools. As a conclusion, the enjoyment factor of these tools increases learner motivation and level of attainment.

Game-Based Approaches to Enhancing Public Understanding of Science: A Descriptive Literature Review

With prominent looming global issues such as climate change and COVID-19, public understanding of science (PUS) is increasingly perceived to be vital for humanity to address and adapt to global wicked challenges. Compared to conventional approaches that struggle with public engagement, games can potentially remedy this by proactively engaging players towards more fruitful performance in and outside games. While the employment of game-based approaches in pedagogy in general is not a new development, gamifying PUS has only recently grown to relative prominence for its superiority in engaging the public with active science-derived interpretation, deliberation, and consequent action. To understand the state-of-the-art of this field, we conduct a systematic descriptive literature review of the extant corpus. We reviewed 29 papers and investigated their types of interventions, contexts, populations, and outcomes. The results overall indicate diverse yet imbalanced research focuses thus far, for which we discuss implications for future research. © 2023 IEEE Computer Society. All rights reserved.

Digital games in engineering education: systematic review and future trends

The application of digital games in higher education is on the rise in engineering. With the recent COVID-19 restrictions and the move to virtual learning, the interest in and the need for virtual laboratories and technology-enhanced experiential learning tools like digital games are expected to rise. This paper presents a review of the current practices in digital game-based learning for engineering education. Most importantly, it provides insight into the application of digital game-based learning across diverse engineering disciplines. It also provides researchers and practitioners with insights into relevant journals and conferences, available games, research designs and assessment methods being used in digital game-based learning in the context of engineering. Based on predefined inclusion criteria, a total of 51 articles published within the last decade were analysed in detail. Software engineering education was found to evaluate the educational use of games most extensively. Eighteen empirical studies also reported some learning gains with digital games using different assessment methods. The findings of this review indicate increase in the dissemination of games research and possibly in the use of games for engineering education. This paper closes by highlighting future trends in digital game-based learning for engineering education.

Gamified-based learning: Introducing recycling with an added epoch of technology

Gamified-based learning is a fun and exciting add-on to a learning process that will improve the interest and knowledge of a user/player. It is an iteration of the game-based learning method that has been proven to be effective before. Unfortunately, not all learning aspects can be turned into the gaming platform. However, one exciting and relevant science-related topic is recycling. During Covid-19, aspects of largescale hands-on recycling habits could not be infused into the students' learning process. By using an existing virtual ecosystem created by an online platform known as "Recycle City" to supplement students' learning process, quasi-experimental research was carried out with 68 students from a college from a northern state in Malaysia. The findings showed that the online gaming platform managed to increase the understanding level of the students significantly. This showed that despite being under lockdown at home, with various distractions available, students were enthralled to use the online gaming platform, which increased their understanding of recycling. A different approach in learning will help supplement the students' morale and interest in times of emergency remote teaching. Although the platform was not deemed the reason for the increase of knowledge, a different method can invoke and improve the students' interest in learning. © 2022 by Nova Science Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved.

Can Underprivileged Children Learn Effectively at Home? A Six-Month Study of Game-based Traditional Chinese Learning During the Pandemic Lockdown

The COVID-19 pandemic has suspended physical classes, and influenced students from underprivileged groups more seriously due to their poor living conditions and digital disadvantages. To understand the impact of the constrained learning, we conducted a study on game-based learning to examine the effectiveness of computer-aided and autonomous learning of traditional Chinese by underprivileged students. From December 2020 to May 2021, we collected 3,245 quiz results from 26 underprivileged students over six months. The quizzes systematically covered the fundamentals of learning traditional Chinese in six aspects, i.e., literacy, orthography, phonology, morphology, speaking, and writing. We analyzed the results to understand the learning efficacy of students. Remarkably, students can significantly improve their skills in literacy and phonology through unsupervised game-based learning. Furthermore, by parsing the writing tasks, we observe substantial improvements among 7 out of 13 common types of writing mistakes. Our study provides a critical lens to understand the design opportunities of game-based learning without direct supervision. IEEE

The Impacts of Three Educational Technologies on Algebraic Understanding in the Context of COVID-19.

The current study investigated the effectiveness of three distinct educational technologies-two game-based applications (From Here to There and DragonBox 12+) and two modes of online problem sets in ASSISTments (an Immediate Feedback condition and an Active Control condition with no immediate feedback) on Grade 7 students' algebraic knowledge. More than 3,600 Grade 7 students across nine in-person and one virtual schools within the same district were randomly assigned to one of the four conditions. Students received nine 30-minute intervention sessions from September 2020 to March 2021. Hierarchical linear modeling analyses of the final analytic sample (N = 1,850) showed significantly higher posttest scores for students who used From Here to There and DragonBox 12+ compared to the Active Control condition. No significant difference was found for the Immediate Feedback condition. The findings have implications for understanding how game-based applications can affect algebraic understanding, even within pandemic pressures on learning.

After the Spread of COVID-19: A Study of Board Game Design Factor for Game-Based Learning

This research had the objective to study the design factors of board games for game-based learning by being classified into two parts: 1) Studying the design factors for board games for learning through a systematic review. 2) Studying the design factors for board games of the customers' needs from the quality function deployment technique based on the data gathered from structured questionnaires. The population group comprised 100 board game customers, and the results found that there were two significant factors in designing the board game for promoting learning with the customers' needs that were related to the playing patterns or the mechanisms. Thus, both factors enabled the players to gain the motivation for participation in learning through the board games, including the design factors of the board games for promoting learning until they could respond to customer satisfaction at the same level as existing board games that are appropriately sold in the markets. © 2023, North American Business Press. All rights reserved.

Keep DRAGging ON: Is solving more problems in DragonBox 12+ associated with higher mathematical performance during the COVID-19 pandemic?

Prior research has shown that game-based learning tools, such as DragonBox 12+, support algebraic understanding and that students' in-game progress positively predicts their later performance. Using data from 253 seventh-graders (12–13 years old) who played DragonBox as a part of technology intervention, we examined (a) the relations between students' progress within DragonBox and their algebraic knowledge and general mathematics achievement, (b) the moderating effects of students' prior performance on these relations and (c) the potential factors associated with students' in-game progress. Among students with higher prior algebraic knowledge, higher in-game progress was related to higher algebraic knowledge after the intervention. Higher in-game progress was also associated with higher end-of-year mathematics achievement, and this association was stronger among students with lower prior mathematics achievement. Students' demographic characteristics, prior knowledge and prior achievement did not significantly predict in-game progress beyond the number of intervention sessions students completed. These findings advance research on how, for whom and in what contexts game-based interventions, such as DragonBox, support mathematical learning and have implications for practice using game-based technologies to supplement instruction. Practitioner notes What is already known about this topic DragonBox 12+ may support students' understanding of algebra but the findings are mixed. Students who solve more problems within math games tend to show higher performance after gameplay. Students' engagement with mathematics is often related to their prior math performance. What this paper adds For students with higher prior algebraic knowledge, solving more problems in DragonBox 12+ is related to higher algebraic performance after gameplay. Students who make more in-game progress also have higher mathematics achievement, especially for students with lower prior achievement. Students who spend more time playing DragonBox 12+ make more in-game progress;their demographic, prior knowledge and prior achievement are not related to in-game progress. Implications for practice and/or policy DragonBox 12+ can be beneficial as a supplement to algebra instruction for students with some understanding of algebra. DragonBox 12+ can engage students with mathematics across achievement levels. Dedicating time and encouraging students to play DragonBox 12+ may help them make more in-game progress, and in turn, support math learning. © 2023 The Authors. British Journal of Educational Technology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of British Educational Research Association.

Facilitating Engineering Students' Creativity and Teamwork Ethos Using Smart Learning Platforms during Covid-19

Covid-19 has brought some revolutionary changes in Higher Education with a shift from traditional face-to-face teaching and learning to online or hybrid-based delivery. There is a strong emphasis on the integration of technology and smart platforms to deliver an effective teaching and learning environment that can withstand the unpredictable challenges of the ongoing pandemic. But many researchers have noted a lack of social interaction and motivation among students in an online setting. Also, with limited face-to-face interactions, many students had issues with collaboration and other group-based activities. Now with the availability of pre-recorded lecture videos and course materials in several universities, there is a noticeable drop in student engagement. To retain and boost students' motivation in the current complex environment, there is an added pressure among educators to create teaching content by utilizing smart and innovative teaching approaches that are efficient and effective. Smart learning platforms might offer the potential solutions to address some of the issues with the changing landscape of teaching and learning due to the pandemic. Such platforms are versatile and therefore, can work seamlessly across in-person and virtual teaching and learning environments. They can provide an interactive platform to facilitate active learning and the quality of teamwork experience among students. The objective of this paper is to explore the effectiveness of some of the smart teaching-learning platforms used in the MSc Engineering Management programme in the School of Physics, Engineering and Technology at the University of York. A survey was conducted among the cohort from this programme in the Summer of 2021 to review their engagement and experiences with these platforms. Can such smart platforms facilitate creativity and improve teamwork ethos among students? The paper will discuss the findings of this study and also highlight if such approaches can transform the educational setting post Covid-19. © 2022 IEEE.

The Development and Preliminary Evaluation of an Educational Game for Online Flight Reservation Services That Involves Real Person-NPCs

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, distant learning has become a norm. In this study, a situated learning game "Ticketing Expert” was designed, combining the real person-NPC mechanism to provide a highly realistic travel agency environment and atmosphere. In the game, the real person-NPCs play the customer, which allow the learners to be immersed in the travel agency's ticketing department and simulate the interaction between the ticketing staffs and customers for enhancing learners' ticketing and communication capabilities. The preliminary study investigated the learners' flow state and their acceptance of the game. The results showed that the game-based learning mechanism could effectively enhance the flow of the learners, enabling them to be highly concentrated. And the learners highly agreed with the idea of using the game to help them learn in the ticketing field. © ICCE 2022.All rights reserved.

Games in Times of a Pandemic: Structured Overview of COVID-19 Serious Games.

BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic introduced an urgent need for effective strategies to disseminate crucial knowledge and improve people's subjective well-being. Complementing more conventional approaches to knowledge dissemination, game-based interventions were developed to create awareness and educate people about the pandemic, hoping to change their attitudes and behavior. OBJECTIVE: This study provided an overview and analysis of digital and analog game-based interventions in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. As major pandemics and other large-scale disruptive events are expected to increase in frequency in the coming decades, this analysis aimed to inform the design, uptake, and effects of similar future interventions. METHODS: From November 2021 to April 2022, Scopus, Google, and YouTube were searched for articles and videos describing COVID-19-themed game-based interventions. Information regarding authorship, year of development or launch, country of origin, license, deployment, genre or type, target audience, player interaction, in-game goal, and intended transfer effects was extracted. Information regarding intervention effectiveness was retrieved where possible. RESULTS: A diverse assortment of 23 analog and 43 digital serious games was identified, approximately one-third of them (25/66, 38%) through scientific articles. Most of these games were developed by research institutions in 2020 (13/66, 20%) and originated in Europe and North America (38/66, 58%). A limited number (20/66, 30%) were tested on relatively small samples, using a diversity of research methods to assess the potential changes in participants' knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors as well as their gameplay experience. Although most of the evaluated games (11/20, 55%) effectively engaged and motivated the players, increased awareness, and improved their understanding of COVID-19-related issues, the games' success in influencing people's behavior was often unclear or limited. CONCLUSIONS: To increase the impact of similar future interventions aimed at disseminating knowledge and influencing people's attitudes and behaviors during a large-scale crisis, some considerations are suggested. On the basis of the study results and informed by existing game theories, recommendations are made in relation to game development, deployment, and distribution; game users, design, and use; game design terminology; and effectiveness testing for serious games.

Design and evaluation of a remote synchronous gamified mathematics teaching activity that integrates multi-representational scaffolding and a mind tool for gamified learning.

Gamified learning is an instructional strategy that motivates students to learn, and the use of multiple representations assists learning by promoting students' thinking and advanced mathematical problem-solving skills. In particular, emergency distance learning caused by the COVID-19 pandemic may result in a lack of motivation and effectiveness in learning. This study designed an online gamified learning activity incorporating multi-representational scaffolding and compared the differences in the learning achievement and motivation for the gamified activity and general synchronous distance learning. In addition, for the group that conducted the gamified learning activity, we measured the participants' flow, anxiety, and emotion during the activity. A total of 36 high school students participated in the experiment. The results indicated that the gamified learning activity was not significantly effective in terms of enhancing learning achievement. In terms of learning motivation, a significant decrease in motivation was found for the group using general synchronous learning, while a significant increase in motivation was found for the group using synchronous gamified learning. This indicates that despite the negative impact of the pandemic on learning, gamified learning still enhances students' learning motivation. The results of flow, anxiety, and emotion showed that the participants had a positive and engaged experience. Participants provided feedback that the multi-representational scaffolding facilitates learning.

Patient Engagement With a Game-Based Digital Therapeutic for the Treatment of Opioid Use Disorder: Protocol for a Randomized Controlled Open-Label, Decentralized Trial.

BACKGROUND: Prescription digital therapeutics are software-based disease treatments that are regulated by the US Food and Drug Administration; the reSET-O prescription digital therapeutic was authorized in 2018 and delivers behavioral treatment for individuals receiving buprenorphine for opioid use disorder. Although reSET-O improves outcomes for individuals with opioid use disorder, most of the therapeutic content is delivered as narrative text. PEAR-008 is an investigational device based on reSET-O that uses an interactive, game-based platform to deliver similar therapeutic content designed to enhance patient engagement, which may further improve treatment outcomes. OBJECTIVE: We aim to investigate how participants interact with the prescription digital therapeutic's new content delivery format. Secondary objectives include evaluating treatment success, symptoms of co-occurring mental health disorders, recovery capital, and skill development. METHODS: Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this study was redesigned using a decentralized model because it was not possible to conduct medication initiation and study visits in person, as initially intended. A decentralized, randomized controlled trial design will be utilized to compare patient engagement with PEAR-008 and that with reSET-O using both subjective and objective assessments. The study population will consist of approximately 130 individuals with opioid use disorder (based on Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders 5 criteria) who have recently started buprenorphine treatment for opioid use disorder. Participants will be virtually recruited and randomly assigned to receive either PEAR-008 or reSET-O. All study sessions will be virtual, and the duration of the study is 12 weeks. The primary outcome measure of engagement is operationalized as the number of active sessions per week with either PEAR-008 or reSET-O. (An active session is any session that contains some active participation in the app, such as navigating to a different screen, engaging with a learning module, or responding to a notification.) Subjective dimensions of engagement will be assessed with participant surveys. The hypothesis is that PEAR-008 will have significantly greater participant engagement than reSET-O. RESULTS: As of February 2021, participant enrollment is ongoing. CONCLUSIONS: This randomized controlled trial will investigate if changing the delivery format and enhancing the content of a prescription digital therapeutic for opioid use disorder will affect how participants use and interact with the prescription digital therapeutic. The study design may serve as a useful model for conducting decentralized studies in this patient population. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT04542642; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04542642. INTERNATIONAL REGISTERED REPORT IDENTIFIER (IRRID): DERR1-10.2196/32759.

Promoting respectful maternal and newborn care using the Dignity game: A quasi-experimental study.

AIM: This study assessed a) the impact of playing the Dignity board game on participants' understanding of respectful maternal and newborn care and b) participants' perceptions of how the game influenced their subsequent practice in Malawi and Zambia. BACKGROUND: Nurse-midwives' poor understanding of respectful maternal and newborn care can lead to substandard practice; thus, effective education is pivotal. Used in several disciplines, game-based learning can facilitate skills acquisition and retention of knowledge. DESIGN: a quasi-experimental study, using mixed-methods of data collection. METHODS: Data were collected between January and November 2020. Nurse-midwives (N = 122) and students (N = 115) were recruited from public hospitals and nursing schools. Completion of paper-based questionnaires, before and after game-playing, assessed knowledge of respectful care principles and perceptions around behaviours and practice. Face-to-face interviews (n = 18) explored perceived impact of engaging with the game in clinical practice. Paired and unpaired t-test were used to compare scores. Qualitative data were analysed and reported thematically. RESULTS: The study was completed by 215 (90.7 %) participants. Post-test scores improved significantly for both groups combined; from 25.91 (SD 3.73) pre-test to 28.07 (SD 3.46) post-test (paired t = 8.67, 95 % confidence interval 1.67-2.65), indicating an increased knowledge of respectful care principles. Nurse-midwives performed better than students, both before and after. In Malawi, the COVID pandemic prevented a third of nurse-midwives' from completing post-game questionnaires. Qualitative findings indicate the game functioned as a refresher course and helped nurse-midwives to translate principles of respectful care into practice. It was also useful for self-reflection. CONCLUSIONS: The Dignity board game has the potential to enhance understanding and practice of respectful maternal and newborn care principles in low-resource settings. Integration into nursing and midwifery curricula and in-service training for students and healthcare workers should be considered.

Game-Based Language Learning in Technological Contexts: An Integrated Systematic Review and Bibliometric Analysis

In the COVID-19 pandemic, delivering learning content to students via the use of technologies has become mainstream. Among various technology-supported learning modes, game-based language learning (GBLL) has been considered an effective approach to engaging learners in joyful and interactive contexts. This study aims to provide an overview of GBLL using bibliometric mapping analysis and coding analysis. This systematic review provides a scoping overview of empirical evidence on the use and impacts of games in language learning from 1989 to 2020. Based on a set of criteria retrieved from the Web of Science, 101 articles were analyzed. The coding analysis were three aspects to identify the research issues, performance issues, and interaction issues. Moreover, in a comprehensive review of the research on GBLL, insights are provided for educators and future research. The findings differing from those of previous reviews can serve as a reference for researchers on GBLL-related studies.