Event contact Rachel Finch

Speaker: Dr Jacob Habgood, Software & Games Development

Title: Blending chocolate, broccoli and skeletons: harnessing intrinsic motivation in game-based learning

Despite decades of research in the field of game-based learning, commercial approaches to educational game design in 2015 are often no more progressive than those used on consumer audiences in the 1980s. This is characterised by a superficial, “chocolate-covered broccoli” approach to educational game design, in which the learning content is very loosely coupled with the game. This talk will use the example of the “Zombie Division” project to explain an alternative design approach in which a game’s learning content is closely integrated with its game-mechanics.

The results of several studies will be presented which provide empirical evidence that suggests there are both educational and motivational benefits to using a more integrated approach. The talk will conclude with a sneak peak of the “Outnumb3r3d” project which applies this integrated design approach to an “educational” game for the PlayStation 4. (Talk originally presented at the School of Education’s Digital Education series of talks at Edinburgh University, November 2015).