MAPPING GAMES AND GAMING STYLE WITH LEARNING

GOALS AND STYLE

Adelina Aleksieva-Petrova

Faculty of Computer Systems and Control, Technical University - Sofia, Kl. Ohridski Str. 8, Sofia, Bulgaria

Milen Petrov

Department of Software Engineering, Sofia University, J. Baucher 5 Blvd., Sofia, Bulgaria

Keywords: Game, Learner style, Gamer style, e-Learning.

Abstract: In the era of e-services such as e-learning, e-government, e-business, etc. enhancing such services and

adapting them to one's personal needs is a very promising way for the user to benefit even further from

them. As a step forward in the development of adaptive learning systems with integrated game elements it is

first necessary to review different types of games and their characteristics. Moreover, it is important to take

into account gaming styles as well as to summarize the processes of learning and playing by mapping

learning styles corresponding to different gaming styles. This paper attempts to investigate and describe

different gaming issues as a first step toward building a software framework for the integration of game

elements utilized in e-learning.

1 INTRODUCTION

In the era of e-services in the fields of education (e-

learning), government (e-government), business (e-

business) and many others, the enrichment of such

services with adaptation according personal needs is

both promising and challenging. E-learning services

are especially important tools that can expand

learning opportunities. Thus, the development of

modern learning systems that are adaptable to one's

own learning characteristics is often oriented toward

the integration of game elements and their

application in ways that take into account the

learner's unique learning style (Vassileva, 2009).

How to make education more effective, while

increasing the learner's involvement, are very

important issues. Using educational games or so-

called game elements in learning is one possible

approach to achieving that goal. An educational

game can be defined as an instructional method that

can provide students with real-time response, thus

enabling them to gauge how well they retain the

main concepts presented in the instruction session

(Virvou, 2008). Then it is necessary to create the

framework for evaluation of the game and game

elements and helping to understand how to use these

elements in e-learning.

This paper discusses the main problem of how to

choose appropriate games and how to apply them to

achieve the learning objectives best suited to the

learner as a gamer. To achieve this aim it is first

necessary to answer two main questions:

 How should a game or activity be chosen that

will address the learning objectives?

 What are the existing different gaming styles

and how can these styles be adapted to the

style of user as a learner?

Next section gives a literature review of the

current state of the art of educational games and

related game elements. The third section of the paper

we define games and gaming styles which we will

need in achieving our goal - to map game elements

and gamer style to learner goals and learner style.

Also, we separate games into several groups, i.e. in

different categories, according to the literature being

reviewed. The last section points out conclusions

and outlines future work, as this paper is a starting,

nevertheless important step toward further design

and development of a software framework for

successfully incorporating games and game elements

into e-learning with possibility to be adapted to the

learner according to his or her needs.

169

Aleksieva-Petrova A. and Petrov M. (2010).

MAPPING GAMES AND GAMING STYLE WITH LEARNING GOALS AND STYLE.

In Proceedings of the Multi-Conference on Innovative Developments in ICT, pages 169-172

DOI: 10.5220/0003046801690172

 SciTePress

2 LITERATURE REVIEW OF

GAME ELEMENTS IN

EDUCATION

Yacci, Haake, and Rozanskiv (Virvou, 2008) have

identified three types of learning which are not

necessarily usable and valuable outside the

edutainment environment: operations, strategy and

instructional goals and outcomes. Operations refers

to the ‘‘legal’’ movements and actions that a player

can make inside the game. Strategy learning refers to

the overall plot or mission of the game. Finally,

instructional goals and outcomes refer to educational

goals and outcomes that have value beyond the

game itself. That separation is useful and we use

these three elements as starting point for integration

of games with educational environment.

Another six structural elements of games

(Prensky, 2001) which we can use in addition are:

rules, goals, outcomes and feedback, competition or

challenge, interaction and representation or story.

Furthermore, Finneran and Zhang (Kiili, 2005)

have proposed a person-artifact-task (PAT) model

that conceptualizes the major components of a

person working on a computer-related activity.

According to the model, the likelihood of experience

flow is dependent on the interplay between the

person, the task and the artefact and all these three

components should be taken into account when

designing educational games.

One important type of educational game is the

Alternate Reality Game (ARG), proposed by

(Whitton, 2009). It consists of three elements: an

underlying narrative or story, a series of challenges

or puzzles and a collaborative community. While all

three elements were facilitated online, many

challenges took place in the real world and some

were designed to be individual, while others were

collaborative - see the classifications in Figure 1

below. He also proposes ten characteristics of

games: competition, challenge, exploration, fantasy,

goals, interaction, outcomes, people, rules and

safety.

As shown in the diagram, the main elements of

games can be used in evaluating the software used to

create successful educational games. These elements

are separated both according to individual vs. group

elements and the separation between online (virtual)

worlds vs. real (in-person) worlds.

Online

Group

Real

Individual

classic puzzles

puzzles

collaborative

research

urban quests

treasure hunts

group

problem-solving

Figure 1: Games classifications according group work and

the real world.

In the next section the literature review goes into

more details about some different types of games.

3 GAME TYPES AND GAMING

STYLE

Four different types of games are defined in

(Caillois, 1961):

 those that involve competition;

 those that involve chance;

 those that involve simulation; and

 those that involve what he terms vertigo, such

as fairground rides.

According to (Kiili, 2005) five other learning

activities commonly associated with games –

simulations, virtual worlds, role play, puzzles and

stories – were also discussed and according to us are

important in relation to this inclusive definition.

There are several types of games: adventure,

platform, puzzle, role play, shooter, sports and

strategy.

The adventure games involve the player

undertaking a series of tasks or sub-tasks in which

they must interact with the virtual world. The player

performs different actions, as talking to characters

and manipulating objects in order to achieve the

objectives of the game or solve some mystery and

complete a quest.

Platform games involve the movement of the

player character through a landscape and jumping up

and down between platforms. The player avoids

obstacles and enemies and picks up treasure, usually

with some overall goal in mind and often in the

context of a narrative.

Puzzle games primarily involve problem-solving

and can take many forms, including words, logic,

INNOV 2010 - International Multi-Conference on Innovative Developments in ICT

170

and mathematics.

Role play games involve the player taking on the

role of a character in another world, for example

fantasy-based world. The player can undertake a

range of activities including solving quests, fighting,

hunting and interacting with other characters.

Shooter games are another genre in which multi-

player games are common. They are generally

played from a first person viewpoint and are played

in real time. These games have the primary aim of

using weapons to defeat opponents, although the

action is often embedded within a wider narrative

context. They involve a combination of strategy and

dexterity, exploring virtual worlds and defeating

enemies and targets.

Sports games allow the player to simulate taking

part in a sporting event or tournament and are

generally based on physical dexterity and interaction

with the gaming interface.

Strategy games involve the player making

strategic decisions within a scenario in order to meet

the goal of the game, which is usually completing a

level or solving a particular problem.

Another type of game, the so-called quiz game,

is based on short-answer questions. Such games

include hangman, crosswords and to be millionaire.

As a result of scientific research and according to

the review we summarized the following main

gaming styles:

 Logician

– likes logic and used spatial

awareness, verbal skills, numeracy skills and

spelling.

 Competitor/Shooter

– a person who enjoys

action and shooting and focussed on the

competition itself. This gaming style uses not

only shooting but also various instruments in a

sports game.

 Strategist

– a person who likes resolving

complex problems within a game.

 Dreamer

– a person who likes playing roles and

thrives in the fantasy world of avatars.

4 MAPPING GAMES AND

LEARNING GOALS RELATIVE

TO GAMING STYLE

Using games as instructional tools can help learners

to make a connection between theory and taught

skills. Additionally, gamers use their own playing

style in the role of learners; therefore, we can divide

different games into groups according to their type

as shown in Figure 2 below.

Figure 2: Games classifications according group work and

relation to the real world.

Gaming style, learning activity and possible

games are given below according to style and

activities as outlined in Table 1.

Table 1: Gamer style, learning activity and possible game

types.

Gamer

style

Learning activity Possible

games

Logician

logic, spatial awareness, verbal

skills, numeracy skills, and

spelling

puzzle, quiz

Dreamer problem-solving and lateral

thinking, collaborative skills,

social interaction, negotiation,

management of complex systems,

strategy and working through

scenarios

role-playing

games,

adventu-re

games

Compe-

titor

hand–eye coordination, planning

and strategizing, problem-

solving, teamwork and the ability

to think quickly

sports,

platform,sh

ooter

Strate-

gist

Strategy games can be used to

teach planning, decision-making,

testing hypotheses, strategic

thinking, management skills and

seeing the consequences of

actions taken.

strategy

games

Classification of gamers' style, which we relate

to learning activities in the table is mapped by us to

the four learning styles: Reflector, Theorist,

Pragmatist, and Activist (Honey and Mumford,

MAPPING GAMES AND GAMING STYLE WITH LEARNING GOALS AND STYLE

171

2000). According to the research we can point out

following important conclusions:

1. Learning style, which characterizes the activist

learner can be mapped and used with competitor or

shooter style of gamer. Typical for gamers with that

style are that they are open minded for new ideas

and tend to experiment. They also like teamwork

and prefer to be active.

2. On the opposite of activist is theorist learning

style. That learning style can be mapped in higher

degree to logician style of gamer. In that case is

valid logical thinking and step-by-step solution of

the problems.

3. Third learning style is known as reflector.

That style can be mapped to gamers' style named

dreamer in the classification above. Usually that

style of gamer prefers to stay aside and to analyse

problem from different birth-eye views.

4. Last learning style we used is pragmatist. That

style can be mapped to strategy games and

corresponding gamers' style of strategist.

Pragmatists tend to describe and conceptualize the

things which can be applied to their work.

5 CONCLUSION, LIMITATIONS

AND FUTURE WORK

So call serious games are already well proven mean

for effective learning the entire life cycle of products

and processes. Research in the area of gaming styles

has been and continues to be undertaken in order to

understand the relationship between a person’s

gaming style and his or her preferred method of

learning.

As result in paper we achieved merging of

learning style and gaming style through learning

activities. The analysis and research will be used in

two directions:

 to choose appropriated game according learning

style and

 to adapt and transform learning content into

game content.

The limitation of this paper is that a complete

user model that takes into account also learner

preferences have not been built yet. Nevertheless,

this research is a very important step toward

building such a model.

In our future work we will use this model to

develop an application platform designed to create

and run certain types of educational games focused

on adaptive e-learning (Bontchev, 2010). Such

games can help for example gaining practical

experience in strategic manufacturing through

intensive and fascinating gaming and e-learning.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Research is partially supported by the SISTER

project, funded by the European Commission in

FP7-SP4 Capacities via agreement no. 205030 and

ADaptive technOlogy-enhanced Platform for

eduTAinment (ADOPTA) project, started 01.2009,

no. D002/155 funded by funded by the Bulgarian

Ministry of Education and Science.

REFERENCES

Bontchev, B., Vassileva, D., 2010. Modelling educational

quizzes as board games, to appear in proc. of IADIS

e-Society'2010 Int. Conf., 18-20 March, Porto,

Portugal.

Caillois, Roger., 1961. Man, Play and Games, trans.

Meyer Barash. New York: Free Press.

Clark, Donald., 2006, „Games and e-learning”, Caspian

Learning.

Kiili К., 2005. Digital game-based learning: Towards an

experiential gaming model, Internet and Higher

Education 8.

Honey, P. and Mumford, A., 2000, The Learning Styles

Questionnaire. ,Maidenhead: Peter Honey

Publications.

Moreno-Ger, P., D. Burgos, I. Martinez-Ortiz, J. Luis

Sierra, B. Fernandez-Manjon, 2008, „Educational

game design for online education”, Elsevier Ltd.

Prensky, M., 2001. Digital game-based learning. New

York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

Vassileva D., Bontchev, B., 2009. Management of

storyboard graphs for adaptive courseware

construction, Proc. of 3rd Int. Conf. on

Communication and Inf. Technology (CIT’09),

Athens, Greece, ISBN: 978-960-474-146-5, pp. 39-44.

Virvou, M., G. Katsionis, 2008. On the usability and

likeability of virtual reality games for education: The

case of VR-ENGAGE, Computers & Education 50.

Whitton N., 2009. Alternate Reality Games for

Orientation - Final report, Manchester Metropolitan

University.

INNOV 2010 - International Multi-Conference on Innovative Developments in ICT

172