Article Preview
TopThe affordances of digital games align naturally with the goals of museum education, such as fostering engagement in science, and enabling learners to manipulate, test, and explore hypotheses about the natural world (National Research Council, 2009). However, designing game-based learning environments presents several challenges. Game design is multidisciplinary, requiring close collaboration between software developers, educators, artists, testers, and other specialists. Games are complex, requiring myriad design decisions with uncertain impacts on learners’ experiences. Most notably, there is a dearth of evidence-based research on the design principles and methods necessary for creating effective game-based learning environments.
Reviews of the game-based learning literature have broadly concluded that games can yield positive learning outcomes across a range of educational subjects (Connolly et al., 2012). In recent years, a pair of prominent meta-analyses independently concluded that, in general, digital game technologies are often more effective than traditional instructional methods in fostering learning and retention (Clark et al., 2016; Wouters et al., 2013). Expanding on this conclusion, Wouters et al. (2013) advise, “the next step is more value-added research on specific game features that determine ... effectiveness” (p. 262). Clark et al. (2016) echo this argument, concluding, “[Research on game-based learning] should thus shift emphasis … to cognitive-consequences and value-added studies exploring how theoretically driven design decisions influence situated learning outcomes” (p. 116).