Background: Complex skills, like analytical thinking, are essential in preparing students for future professions. Serious games hold potential to stimulate the online acquisition of such professional skills in an active and experiential way. Objective: Rubrics are proven assessment and evaluation instruments, but were never directly integrated…

Children are vulnerable in earthquakes, but they are also essential to foster earthquake-resilient communities. It is critical to enhance the preparedness of children against earthquakes through effective education and training. Immersive virtual reality (IVR) and serious games (SGs) are innovative digital technologies that enable realistic and…

Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) has become an essential issue for schools facing major challenges such as bridging the knowledge-action-gap. Interactive simulations could help to focus on action-oriented learning. As part of a design-based research (DBR) process, we investigated the learning potential of game elements within a digital…

An important challenge in higher education today is the growing tutor-student ratio that diminishes the 'human touch'. As learning and teaching ultimately form an interpersonal process, this will lead to student discontent and impact on their learning. Whilst there is little that teaching practitioners can do in terms of the growing student…

This classroom-based action research study investigated the creative implementation of fluency instruction for English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners through the use of a virtual character-playing simulation called Place Out of Time (POOT). The researchers sought to identify what supported and impeded student participation in this game-based…

In this article, we describe the multiple phases of a teaching project that was constructed around an actual request by a Muslim community in the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) to establish an Islamic cultural centre. The request provoked a sometimes heated discussion among politicians and citizens that was published in daily newspapers. A…

In large measure the authors agree with Tobias and Fletcher's (2012) comments stating that clearer operational definitions of game features are needed to enable research on games and learning. The authors cannot accept that games are a subset of simulations, preferring to identify instances when games and simulations overlap and when they do not.…

Engagement in game design tasks can help preservice teachers develop pedagogical and technical skills for teaching and promoting critical thinking and problem-solving skills. Through the design process, preservice teachers not only exercise critical-thinking and problem-solving skills, but also learn about an instructional method to support their…

Most serious games have been developed without a proper and comprehensive design theory. To contribute to the development of such a theory, this article presents the underlying design philosophy of LEVEE PATROLLER, a game to train levee patrollers in the Netherlands. This philosophy stipulates that the design of a digital serious game is a…

In K-12 classrooms, as well as on the college and university level, the incorporation of digital games has played a vital role in the educational system. While introducing teachers to new fields, these digital games have been designed and implemented for the classroom and have shown positive results at a variety of educational levels. Cases on…

Computer based simulations and games can be useful tools in teaching aspects of construction project management that are not easily transmitted through traditional lecture based approaches. However, it can be difficult to quantify their utility and it is essential to ensure that students are achieving the learning outcomes required rather than…

This article describes a new approach to debriefing that uses the discussion forum feature of the Moodle open source course management system to debrief a simulation game with undergraduate business students. The simulation game allowed the students to experience the fragility of trust when sharing knowledge in a global virtual project team. I…

Since its introduction in academia and professional practice during the 1950s, gaming has been linked to simulation. Although both fields have a few important characteristics in common, they are distinct in their form and underlying theories of knowledge and methodology. Nevertheless, in the literature, hybrid terms such as "gaming/simulation" and…

Capstone courses can create a space for students and educators to act as co-producers of desired learning outcomes which are directly relevant to the world of work. This study uses an auto-ethnographic case study approach to demonstrate how a mixed model learning approach evolved in a capstone marketing strategy unit in a marketing major at an…

DEVELOPMENT MONOPOLY is a simulation game that allows players to experience how power relations influence the agency of different socioeconomic groups, and how this can induce poverty and inequality. Players alter the original rules of the MONOPOLY board game so that they more accurately reflect social stratification and inequalities in the…