Educators as Facilitators of Game-Based Learning: Their Knowledge, Attitudes, and Skills

Introduction

Educators need to be constantly adapting to new technologies and teaching methodologies. For this to occur, continuous skills development and identity reformulation are required. It is a creative adaptation and direction for self-development (Shah & Foster, 2015).

Game-based learning (GBL) practice is considered a new teaching methodology, which aims to challenge educators to adapt the use of games with pedagogical content. This practice also promotes the increase of their professional skills and the educator's motivation, as it promotes engagement in students for learning (Nicholson, 2018) The use of GBL, aims to encourage learning through different types of educational games that have specific learning objectives and outcomes. This strategy involves the repetition of desired results. Through the motivational mechanisms of reinforcement and emotions, the desired results become automatic behavioral processes or habits. This information loop is maintained without great cognitive effort, as this knowledge is obtained gradually throughout the game process (Almeida, 2020).

Educational games are games that have formal objectives, designed to help people learn about particular subjects, expand concepts, reinforce development, or help them learn a skill while playing. This denomination is usually used in a school context, while serious games are more commonly used in companies (Clarke et al., 2017). The difference between GBL and educational games is that GBL is more a method, the way of learning, and educational games are a product in which GBL is possible. Thus, GBL is part of the general concept of educational games and has been used successfully in various fields such as health, management, tourism, and psychology (Chetouani et al., 2018; Carenys & Moya, 2016; Xu et al., 2017; Almeida, 2020).

The implementation of methodologies based on games in the classroom is a practice that has been implemented in educational institutions, at different levels of education, as well as in different countries and environments (Tercanli et al., 2021)Nevertheless, the development of these learning game tools is considered a complex practice for beginners and requires multiple tasks and the presence and development of skills and competencies in the educators themselves (Yi et al., 2020).

Education institutions must create appropriate framework conditions but also educators should be open to new learning approaches such as learner-centered learning. Moreover, the emerging experience in the field suggests that there should be collaboration among colleagues to foster the joint development of such learning environments. Another challenge concerns the existence of technical prerequisites that are necessary to enable the adoption of such innovative approaches and embed them in the constellation of standard learning materials in the future (Buchner & Zumbach, 2020).

In this context, it is essential to identify educators’ skills and possible training needs about game-based learning. Once identified, it is necessary to develop and implement teacher training programs to disseminate the use of GBL (Kamışlı, 2019). Different variables such as environment, resources, professional and personal elements are important for the development of these skills. To determine the success of GBL activities, educators should gather knowledge about games, pedagogy, and content (Nousiainen et al., 2018).