University orientation plays a crucial role in fostering student engagement, social integration, and retention. This practice report describes the development and refinement of a game-based orientation activity: a digital scavenger hunt designed to enhance engagement, social connectedness, and campus familiarisation. The activity was guided by the…

Learning activities are often perceived as a tedious work tasks. To address this perception, concepts such as Gamification and Game-Based Learning have been introduced to make learning more enjoyable. Deep focus states, such as Immersion and Flow, describe situations where learners are highly focused and disregard the work aspect of the activity.…

This research examines the effect of critical reflection activities in an educational environment that uses active and blended learning experiences for students to develop confidence, motivation, and engagement with their learning. A mixed-methods research approach was adopted on a sample of 137 Communications and Media students, who were involved…

Understanding homeostasis is foundational to biology; yet students often hold persistent misconceptions about its mechanisms and complexity. To address these challenges, we developed a collaborative, card-based board game in which players act as components of the endocrine and physiological systems to help a character named Bill enact homeostasis…

Educational game designers face persistent challenges in integrating learning activities seamlessly into gameplay. Existing content integration strategies, such as intrinsic and extrinsic integration, often struggle to balance motivation, engagement, and learning outcomes effectively. This paper addresses these long-standing challenges by…

The application of gamification for educational purposes has been widely reported with mixed results. Successful application, in most cases, is subjective and failures or mistakes are often downplayed when in reality, there is much to be learnt from these (failed) attempts. Despite the unique nature of each context and target audience,…

The COVID-19 pandemic forced instruction into remote formats, rendering active learning efforts in business classrooms infeasible. In response, we adopt a novel model for interactive classroom activities by hosting classroom games on Google Sheets, the free and widely used cloud-based spreadsheet application. First developed for a synchronous Zoom…

Due in part to its flexibility and open design, the video game Minecraft has emerged as a popular tool for teaching and learning. Inspired by prior research showing the influence of problem-solving mindsets in physical settings, this study is an effort to understand the extent to which an open-ended task influences subsequent problem-solving…

The authors describe Hexacago Health Academy (HHA) 2.0, a five-year summer intervention designed to increase interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) among mostly Black high school students in Chicago. The program features public health fundamentals and game design using principles of systems thinking, social-cognitive…

The aim of this study was to describe the design process of an educational board game, the Planet-Dart. This board game design is based on the science curriculum and aims to enhance middle school students' basic concepts about solar system. The purpose of developing this educational game was to provide an entertaining way for learning science. A…

Gamification, including game-based learning (GBL), is a widely recognized pedagogical approach used for imparting and reinforcing cybersecurity knowledge and skills to learners. One innovative form of GBL gaining popularity across various educational levels, from secondary schools to professional development, is escape room-style education. This…

It is the responsibility of chemistry educators to identify and implement instructional strategies, such as introducing educational board games that can foster active and constructive learning and promote an enjoyable learning experience. This study aimed to design, develop, and evaluate a board game that has the potential to be used as a…

Students on courses leading to professional registration are required to develop an understanding of how to find, appraise and integrate research to inform practice. An escape room activity was designed as part of the learning experience for a first-year academic module titled 'Introduction to evidence-based practice'. The learning module was…

Learning activities related to students' real-life experiences may create meaningful learning. Integrating traditional games into the physics classroom can reconstruct local knowledge into scientific knowledge. The use of technology can affect student learning achievement. One of the technologies currently attracting attention is Augmented reality…

The present study sought to elicit insights into pedagogical practices pertaining to the integration of digital games into teaching and learning. A review of peer-reviewed journal articles published in English over the past 10 years uncovered common pedagogical themes that were categorized into a pre-game, game, and post-game taxonomy. The…