TY - GEN
T1 - Using in-game analytics to explore learning dynamics of information literacy in a social media simulator
AU - Rubio-Campillo, Xavier
AU - Marín-Rubio, Kevin
AU - Corral-Vázquez, Celia
N1 - Funding Information:
The project DiHealthEd (2021-2022) was a research grant funded by the Catalan Research Agency (AGAUR) to use digital games to promote critical thinking on the impact of global emergencies within secondary education classrooms (DeJong, 2023; Fernández Galeote and Hamari, 2021; Squire, 2008). The main output of the project was Julia: A Science Journey (JASJ). JASJ was designed to be used in formal contexts and for this reason the game’s contents were aligned with the Catalan secondary curriculum. JASJ was developed in 18 months by Murphy’s Toast Games, a small, experienced studio specialized on transformative learning experiences (Rubio-Campillo, 2020; Rubio-Campillo et al., 2017). The game was released in Fall 2022, and it is freely available for Windows, Mac, and Linux operating systems both as a direct download and a Steam product since March 2023.
Funding Information:
This research is part of the “DiHealthEd - Integrating Digital Games and Data Science to Promote Understanding of Health Emergencies within Secondary Education” 2020PANDE00072 project funded by PANDEMIES programme (AGAUR – Generalitat de Catalunya). XRC is funded by the Ramón y Cajal programme RYC2018-024050-I (Fondo Social Europeo – Agencia Estatal de Investigación).
PY - 2023/9/29
Y1 - 2023/9/29
N2 - The emergence of Game-Based Learning (GBL) strategies to promote critical thinking has generated a growing need for analytical tools able to assess their effectiveness. Current methods typically apply qualitative approaches such as focus groups and survey-based questionnaires evaluating players' knowledge, skills, and attitudes before and after playing the game; these methods are flexible, and they provide valuable information, yet new methods are needed to improve our understanding of what is happening during a gameplay session. The challenge of understanding the internal dynamics of GBL are illustrated by the open debate on gamified disinformation inoculators. These educational tools teach players how to identify disinformation by training them with a small set of fake news displayed within a gaming experience. There is an ongoing debate on what exactly is being learnt with these inoculators as some studies suggest a positive effect while other ones reveal that they promote scepticism instead of resistance against fake news. It is argued that new analytical methods are required to capture the learning process: detailed data collection on gameplay would be extremely useful to identify the most useful traits of Game-Based Learning, while detecting potential limitations or negative effects of this valuable learning resource. This work presents a novel framework to assess GBL dynamics grounded on data analytics. The approach uses the potential of the Unity in-game analytics platform to collect detailed data on how players tackle the challenges posed by the game mechanics; this diverse information may include the full set of decisions and interactions of the player as well as additional information such as the number of tries or time lapse between interactions. The behavioural data is then combined with content metadata information to infer general learning dynamics amongst players. This analytical framework is applied to a social media simulator included in the video game Julia: A Science Journey. Results suggest that the framework can reveal novel insights including aspects such as the level of engagement of the players, the impact of the type of content on the correct assessment of fake news, and the relation between reading speed and performance.
AB - The emergence of Game-Based Learning (GBL) strategies to promote critical thinking has generated a growing need for analytical tools able to assess their effectiveness. Current methods typically apply qualitative approaches such as focus groups and survey-based questionnaires evaluating players' knowledge, skills, and attitudes before and after playing the game; these methods are flexible, and they provide valuable information, yet new methods are needed to improve our understanding of what is happening during a gameplay session. The challenge of understanding the internal dynamics of GBL are illustrated by the open debate on gamified disinformation inoculators. These educational tools teach players how to identify disinformation by training them with a small set of fake news displayed within a gaming experience. There is an ongoing debate on what exactly is being learnt with these inoculators as some studies suggest a positive effect while other ones reveal that they promote scepticism instead of resistance against fake news. It is argued that new analytical methods are required to capture the learning process: detailed data collection on gameplay would be extremely useful to identify the most useful traits of Game-Based Learning, while detecting potential limitations or negative effects of this valuable learning resource. This work presents a novel framework to assess GBL dynamics grounded on data analytics. The approach uses the potential of the Unity in-game analytics platform to collect detailed data on how players tackle the challenges posed by the game mechanics; this diverse information may include the full set of decisions and interactions of the player as well as additional information such as the number of tries or time lapse between interactions. The behavioural data is then combined with content metadata information to infer general learning dynamics amongst players. This analytical framework is applied to a social media simulator included in the video game Julia: A Science Journey. Results suggest that the framework can reveal novel insights including aspects such as the level of engagement of the players, the impact of the type of content on the correct assessment of fake news, and the relation between reading speed and performance.
KW - critical thinking
KW - data science
KW - fake news
KW - information literacy
KW - video games
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85179007723&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.34190/ecgbl.17.1.1464
DO - 10.34190/ecgbl.17.1.1464
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85179007723
T3 - Proceedings of the European Conference on Games-based Learning
SP - 556
EP - 563
BT - Proceedings of the 17th European Conference on Games Based Learning, ECGBL 2023
A2 - Spil, Ton
A2 - Bruinsma, Guido
A2 - Collou, Luuk
PB - Dechema e.V.
T2 - 17th European Conference on Games Based Learning, ECGBL 2023
Y2 - 5 October 2023 through 6 October 2023
ER -