Student participation in serious games design

Serious games can be defined simply as games with an educational intent. These games are regularly positioned within a curriculum as simple teaching agents and often lack meaningful participation from learners in their development. In 1992, Roger Hart proposed a model for the roles children play in participatory projects with adults. ‘Hart’s Ladder’ presents eight levels of children’s participation moving from tokenistic manipulation of children at the base of this ladder to ‘citizenship’ at the top where children can initiate and share activities with adults. This research contributes to knowledge on methods of integrating serious games into formal educational settings by investigating how children, as participants, can work with their educators, as facilitators, to create serious games for use by their peers. Exploratory field studies have worked with secondary school children (11-16 years) to evaluate the hypothesis that higher levels of participation of children in making serious games will produce more effective educational artefacts. Educational artefacts are context specific to each study but encompass the product and accreditation of the process by participants, facilitators and all stakeholders involved.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

phd

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

Nottingham Trent University

Year dc:date.issued

2011

Author dc:creator

• Bates, MI

Language dc:language

en