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Reflections on Game-Based Learning

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Graduate Skills and Game-Based Learning

Part of the book series: Digital Education and Learning ((DEAL))

Abstract

The previous chapter presented interviews with participants in a study designed to explore whether playing selected video games might help develop in students a range of useful skills and competencies, also known as graduate attributes. In this chapter, the implications of the interview data are considered. Each attribute is examined in turn and the chapter concludes with a brief overview of the skills and experience that students suggest they developed in addition to the stated graduate attributes. Ancillary benefits such as stress relief are also discussed. These empirical observations support ideas presented by scholars such as James Paul Gee and suggest further connections between game-based learning and established theory. It is important to note, however, that these interview data refer to the circumstances under which specific games were played: the participants make multiple references to the effects of being asked to play games with people other than their existing friends. Several of the attributes discussed here appear to be influenced by the fact that students played with strangers from differing cultural backgrounds and with varying gaming experience. Regardless, these interviews reveal the factors that may be at play in a game-based intervention intended to develop graduate attributes.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Dr Steve Draper, whom the author must thank for making this connection between games and Eliot’s remarks, maintains a set of notes and links to further reading at http://www.psy.gla.ac.uk/~steve/localed/eliot.html.

  2. 2.

    https://lgbtqgamearchive.com/.

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  1. Centre for Computing Science Education, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK

    Matthew Barr

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Barr, M. (2019). Reflections on Game-Based Learning. In: Graduate Skills and Game-Based Learning. Digital Education and Learning. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27786-4_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27786-4_5

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