Getting more out of study sessions thanks to digital environments

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In this most recent blog post, we come back to the research work that gave way to the development of Liber Domus, which will be presented in our upcoming White Paper, expected to be released in early September.

Keep in touch to learn more about our work during the next weeks, as well as Liber Domus and all the new features as we approach the start of 22/23 school year.

Getting more out of study sessions thanks to digital environments

Digital games are often misunderstood by teachers regarding their value for education. One of the main reasons for that is the existence of several different types of game genres. An educational game based on puzzles or platforms is very different from a space exploration or strategy game.

Each game genre requires different instructional design and produces different learning architecture and student experience. In the end, it deeply changes how students interact with the educational contents. This means that different game genres will engage with different skills and cognitive functions, and therefore can result in different knowledge dimensions.

How does it work?

Let’s use an example. A well-known strategy game, such as Civilization V. In this game, you play a nation trying to win in a global domination scenario, since birth of civilization (hence the name) to the near-future, spanning more than 5000 years. You play in turns against friends and foes and in each turn you determine what your workers, scientists, philosophers and military do. Each nation has specific units, unique characters, socio-economic and cultural traits, and therefore, the better someone knows a nation the better the gameplay. Although winning is achieved by reaching the victory conditions before opponents, the game series is highly praised by sparking interest by players in history of nations. It even possesses an entire encyclopedia, inside the game, dedicated to knowing more about these subjects.

In terms of educational value, apart from the historical details mentioned previously, there’s value in the long-term strategic thinking, critical thinking, problem solving and other relevant competencies. By introducing additional educational content, strategy games can be used for any subject, but their architecture will always push towards generalized and large-scale events, political and economic themes as opposed to individualized and inter-personal relationships and problem solving. This not only hinders immersion by some students, but also reduces the impact the student feels they can have in the game. At the same time, the top-down or isometric view of the world reduces the impact a 3D engine can have for visualization and interaction with certain elements. You can ask your subjects to build a bicycle and provide the details, but you won’t build it.

So, although strategy games are an interesting choice for educational purposes, the thinking skills it allows to reach are not ideal. There isn’t a complex environment in which the player interacts, there’s no direct verbal information exchange, no emotional connection with characters, and so on. These higher order thinking skills are achievable, but for that, an adequate game genre must be selected.

Taxonomies of educational games

To choose a game genre and, in fact, to build an instructional design that allows students to reach most of all of the higher order thinking skills is to truly take full advantage of a game and its digital environment. And what are those?

Bloom’s Taxonomies, revised by Anderson and Krathwohl, say there are six categories of thinking skills from lower to higher, such as Remember, Understand, Apply, Analyse, Evaluate, Create. With higher dimensions of the cognitive process, the different the knowledge acquired.

For example, for a student to remember the different steps of CPR, they need to remember and list factual knowledge. For them to be able to recognize which step they need to perform, they need to understand the interrelationships between the different elements and the structure. For them to recall how to perform CPR, they need to understand the procedure. However, it is much more valuable to reach the stage in which the student deconstructs and understands the procedure, it’s benefits and flaws, and designs and creates a new procedure based on it.

By establishing connections between the game environments and its impact on how students receive educational content and interact with it, we can understand how it’s introduction can substantially benefit them either in classrooms and/or at home.

Game Environments

A game environment can be defined as the entirety of graphic and auditive elements that compose the game and can be found inside it and during gameplay. This includes the user interface, the game scenarios and all the remaining elements such as characters, locations, objects and art. It also includes all the gameplay mechanisms and interaction with said elements. Different genres have different game environments.

The reason why Kendir Studios has decided to use roleplaying adventure games is related to the type of environment these games possess. It’s open-ended gameplay, the focus on story and character development allows us to tap into what the player sees, does, and thinks and provide specific educational content based on it. The complexity of the environment also allows for a customization of educational journeys, keeping immersion and motivation high for any kind of student. 3D close range graphics allow for very complex problem solving and interaction with educational contents. These environments change according to the player’s actions, from the way the characters react to the player’s actions, to entire regions graphically changing to respond to actions taken (e.g. the player visits a broken-down village and helps to rebuild it by providing the materials and help with reconstruction. The next time the player visits it, the village is thriving).

Players also enjoy replaying the game through different actions and different characters, allowing for different perspectives on the same environment, maximizing its value.

In fact, and as several authors already pointed out, and our own research indicates, roleplaying game environments maximize the number of educational higher order thinking skills and, if incorporated into a classroom, it will provide support for teachers and students alike with great success.