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In recent years there has been a renewal of educational software encouraged by the incorporation of specific designs based on serious games. Previous studies on their use do not provide conclusive data on the advancement in learning, both at a general level and in specific contents. The main objective of this work is to study the impact of the use...
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... These principles were implemented in a serious game that teaches students how to add and subtract numbers. Fraga-Valera et al. [24] analyzed the impact of the use of serious games in primary education classrooms, specifically on students' mathematical fluency, taking into account gamification variables and teaching experience. Then, the authors followed these principles for the development of a serious game for teaching additions and subtractions. ...
... Authors, such as Díaz et al. [20] and Pan et al. [21], highlighted the personalization of these games in technical areas, while Kacmaz et al. [22] highlighted pedagogical approaches, such as experiential and constructivist learning. Some research [24,25] showed that serious games improve mathematical fluency and numerical skills, promoting better performance and greater motivation. Meanwhile, the use of technologies, such as Kinect and facial recognition, in serious games seeks to improve educational interaction by personalizing and monitoring emotions and behaviors in real time. ...
Serious games play a significant role in the teaching and learning process by focusing on educational objectives rather than purely on entertainment. By addressing specific educational needs, these games provide targeted learning experiences. The integration of emotion recognition technology into serious games can further enhance teaching and learning by identifying areas where students may need additional support, The integration of emotion recognition into a serious game facilitates the learning of mathematics by allowing the identification of emotional impact on learning and the creation of a tailored learning experience for the student. This study proposes a challenge-based and task-based math serious game that integrates facial emotion recognition named TasksZE. TasksZE introduces a novel approach by adjusting gameplay based on detected emotions, which includes real-time emotion analysis and the cross-validation of emotions. We conducted a usability evaluation of the game using the System Usability Scale (SUS) as a reference, and the results indicate that the students feel that TasksZE is easy to use, the functions are well integrated, and most people can learn to use it very quickly. The students answered that they would use this system frequently since they felt motivated by game attributes, rewards, and level progression. These elements contributed to a more engaging and effective learning experience.
... The main goal of this tool is learning, with the fun aspect of the activity taking a back seat, and it aims to achieve the acquisition of competencies and skills that lead to the holistic development of the student (Sandí Delgado & Bazán, 2021;Taipe et al., 2017). In the field of education, educational software is now revolutionized thanks to the incorporation of specific designs based on SGs (Fraga-Varela et al., 2021). ...
Since the beginning of the 21st century, the number of studies on serious games has been surging, and more and more serious games are being used for educational purposes to facilitate students' learning and increase their motivation. This study systematically reviewed seven empirical studies on the application of serious games in higher arts education from 2019 to 2024, aiming to reveal the current state of recent research in the field, incorporating trends in the use of technology and the results of the impact on learners. The results show that most articles indicate that serious games are effective in higher arts education. Currently, researchers pay relatively little attention to this area, but this area has good research potential. In addition, integrating serious games with technologies such as augmented reality, virtual reality and mixed reality in higher arts education is a promising avenue for future research and development.
... Affect-focused pedagogies that involve students' emotions and senses at the center of teaching are likely to push educators to optimize multimodal (e.g., digital and physical) materials and designs (Jeong et al., 2021). Academic or serious learning with affect support (e.g., serious gamification) may further optimize learning (Fraga-Varela et al., 2021). Combining the two issues, affective-cognitive and realvirtual learning, is a complex and innovative issue to address. ...
This study aims to understand teachers’ opinions toward a framework of affect-focused mathematics teaching and its use in real and virtual classrooms. The participants were 11 school teachers from diverse backgrounds (mostly teaching mathematics). Before the interview, the teachers viewed an introduction to the framework and the teaching materials of the PowerPoint version for real classrooms, and that of the application version (with more interactive games and real-time process data) for virtual classrooms. With qualitative methodologies and the bio-eco-tech model as an analytical model, the analysis results show that teachers perceive that affect is sense-making in the bioecosystem. In the microsystem, students experience the pedagogy of the framework, ICT facilities, and teachers’ technological pedagogical content knowledge. In the mesosystem, the family environment determines the use of extension to outside school settings. The exosystem needs teacher education and advanced ICT development. In the macrosystem, fully implementing the framework has cultural constraints from direct teaching, textbooks, and abundant teaching content—the pandemic and the fast-developing ICT impact the chronosystem. This study contributes to a refined bio-eco-tech model linking real and virtual classrooms, which suggests ways to improve ICT, pedagogical, and teacher program designs for educational practices.
... SGs are used in many areas, including education, training, and healthcare [55]. They have proven to be an efective tool through which people can be taught professional as well as (pro)social skills [7,34,86]. ...
Video games are maturing as a medium to tell stories inspired by historical struggles and real-life experiences. In this regard, they could work as a mechanism in Transitional Justice pursuit. In this paper, we argue that games can become agents for promoting education, reconciliation and healing. We hence identify means by which museums and video games create empathy, reported in recent literature, and draw inceptive parallels between museum space design philosophies and design choices in modern video game experiences. Finally, we identify in the literature that there is a lack of a framework bringing together experts in memory and heritage studies with game developers, to derive guidelines for developing empathy-inducing games around sensitive topics. Thus, we propose a methodological approach on the creation of such a framework. This framework would instrument a collaborative effort to apply domain adaptation of the strategies and design philosophies for memory and Transitional Justice museum exhibitions to video game storytelling frameworks and mechanics.
... In terms of higher cognitive functions or processes, the use of this methodology favors processes such as critical thinking, problem solving and creativity (Dindar, 2018;Pratama & Setyaningrum, 2018), as well as the development of self-regulation processes (Saiz-Manzanares et al., 2020). In a more academic field, serious games allow a better acquisition of skills related to language, mathematics, software engineering and scientific education (Clark et al., 2016;Fraga-Varela et al., 2021;Tokac et al., 2019;Wouters et al., 2013). Linguistic competence has a transversal character and is important in the rest of the subjects; thus, in both Mathematics and Sciences, understanding and verbal expression with accuracy and precision are needed (Enkvist, 2011;Navarra, 2020). ...
... In this sense, it is necessary to consider what the scientific literature tells us about the predictive capacity of GLA. Previous studies have confirmed that serious games can predict students' academic performance, but that the predictive capacity varies depending on the subject or global indicator analyzed (Fraga-Varela et al., 2021;López et al., 2021). In general, predictive capacity is greater in subjects that focus on the development of complex cognitive skills (Jovanović et al., 2021). ...
... Based on the literature, it seems that serious games are resources capable of improving psychological and physical well-being (de Vlieger et al., 2022;Scarpa et al., 2021), as well as motivation, attitudes, concentration of the students, learning achievement (Tapingkae et al., 2020;Taub et al., 2020;Wronowski et al., 2019), and language and Fig. 2 Screen capture of Walinwa's gameplay mathematics-related skills (Clark et al., 2016;Fraga-Varela et al., 2021;Tokac et al., 2019;Wouters et al., 2013). However, there is a lack of studies that explore how GLAs have been designed, integrated, and implemented in serious games. ...
The planned systematized design of the use of serious games in the classroom is presented as a strategy to optimize learning. In this framework, Learning Analytics represents stealth assessment and follow-up method, and a way to personalize such games by simplifying their application for teachers. The aim of this research was to analyze the impact of the use of serious games on improving linguistic competence in socio-educationally disadvantaged students, with a proposal for a planned systematized intervention. We use two specific games to improve linguistic competence and its learning analytics to achieve the proposed goal. This study carried out was pre-experimental, with pretest and posttest, and the sample consisted of 75 students at 4 primary education centers in Spain (36 boys, 39 girls) aged 9–12 (M = 10.6; SD = 0.7) at risk due to socioeconomic conditions in Primary Education. The results show that (a) the serious games integrated into the curriculum and adjusted to the learning objectives can facilitate the development and acquisition of linguistic competence in students with socio-educational disadvantages; (b) these students can match their peers in performance and competencies with appropriate systematic intervention; (c) the level acquired in a key competence can be evaluated and specific needs identified in students with academic difficulties using learning analytics; (d) learning analytics can contribute to predicting student performance in academic subjects through the scores collected in the analysis of learning integrated into serious games. These findings contribute to filling research gaps in these four aspects.
... Ante este panorama, resulta esencial fomentar en los estudiantes una serie de competencias que les permitan comprender y utilizar estas herramientas como recursos funcionales para abordar y resolver tanto problemas académicos como situaciones cotidianas (Espinosa & Mercado, 2008). Por consiguiente, el estudiante requiere del proceso de observación, manipulación, juego y experiencia personal para cultivar sus habilidades lógico-matemáticas (Fraga-Varela et al., 2021). Por lo tanto, es crucial adoptar el enfoque didáctico y pedagógico del planteamiento y resolución de problemas, donde se conciben como un vehículo de aprendizaje que facilita el progresivo desarrollo de estas competencias a través de la interacción entre los estudiantes. ...
... Por esta razón, se observa una gran incapacidad por parte de los estudiantes para utilizar el conocimiento matemático adquirido tanto en otras disciplinas científicas y tecnológicas como en la resolución de problemas de la vida diaria. Por lo cual, a través de esta temática el estudiante tendrá un manejo sólido sobre conceptos de matemáticos, pues permite emplearlos para describir fenómenos del mundo real y aplicarlos en problemas que involucren la adquisición de competencias que permiten que los estudiantes desarrollen procesos como el descubrimiento, la clasificación, la abstracción, la estimación, el cálculo, la predicción, la descripción, la deducción, la medición entre otros (Fraga-Varela et al., 2021). ...
La integración de la tecnología en la educación es esencial, y va más allá de simplemente introducir herramientas tecnológicas en el aula. Implica la creación de un enfoque didáctico que aprovecha las Tecnologías de la Información y Comunicación (TIC) para generar un aprendizaje significativo. Un ejemplo destacado es el uso de videojuegos como herramienta educativa, que motiva a los estudiantes, mejora su atención y les ayuda a adquirir conocimientos de manera atractiva, además de desarrollar competencias y habilidades. Este enfoque busca fortalecer las habilidades lógico-matemáticas y promover el uso de las TIC como recursos funcionales para abordar problemas académicos y situaciones cotidianas. Es por ello, que la investigación se enfoca en destacar el potencial de los videojuegos educativos como herramientas de aprendizaje y motivar a los educadores a utilizar enfoques pedagógicos innovadores para promover competencias digitales y la adquisición de conocimientos en un mundo en constante cambio, haciendo especial énfasis en el pensamiento lógico matemático en estudiantes de preescolar.
... Ante este panorama, resulta esencial fomentar en los estudiantes una serie de competencias que les permitan comprender y utilizar estas herramientas como recursos funcionales para abordar y resolver tanto problemas académicos como situaciones cotidianas (Espinosa & Mercado, 2008). Por consiguiente, el estudiante requiere del proceso de observación, manipulación, juego y experiencia personal para cultivar sus habilidades lógico-matemáticas (Fraga-Varela et al., 2021). Por lo tanto, es crucial adoptar el enfoque didáctico y pedagógico del planteamiento y resolución de problemas, donde se conciben como un vehículo de aprendizaje que facilita el progresivo desarrollo de estas competencias a través de la interacción entre los estudiantes. ...
... Por esta razón, se observa una gran incapacidad por parte de los estudiantes para utilizar el conocimiento matemático adquirido tanto en otras disciplinas científicas y tecnológicas como en la resolución de problemas de la vida diaria. Por lo cual, a través de esta temática el estudiante tendrá un manejo sólido sobre conceptos de matemáticos, pues permite emplearlos para describir fenómenos del mundo real y aplicarlos en problemas que involucren la adquisición de competencias que permiten que los estudiantes desarrollen procesos como el descubrimiento, la clasificación, la abstracción, la estimación, el cálculo, la predicción, la descripción, la deducción, la medición entre otros (Fraga-Varela et al., 2021). ...
La integración de la tecnología en la educación es esencial, y va más allá de simplemente introducir herramientas tecnológicas en el aula. Implica la creación de un enfoque didáctico que aprovecha las Tecnologías de la Información y Comunicación (TIC) para generar un aprendizaje significativo. Un ejemplo destacado es el uso de videojuegos como herramienta educativa, que motiva a los estudiantes, mejora su atención y les ayuda a adquirir conocimientos de manera atractiva, además de desarrollar competencias y habilidades. Este enfoque busca fortalecer las habilidades lógico-matemáticas y promover el uso de las TIC como recursos funcionales para abordar problemas académicos y situaciones cotidianas. Es por ello, que la investigación se enfoca en destacar el potencial de los videojuegos educativos como herramientas de aprendizaje y motivar a los educadores a utilizar enfoques pedagógicos innovadores para promover competencias digitales y la adquisición de conocimientos en un mundo en constante cambio, haciendo especial énfasis en el pensamiento lógico matemático en estudiantes de preescolar.
... The second experience involves the acquisition and implementation of an educational software product as a way of modernising mathematical teaching at the school. The software itself is designed to improve mathematical fluency among students using 'serious games' [57], defined as 'games in which education (in its various forms) is the primary goal, [59,60] and school curricula [61]. This study analyses the impact of a well-known mathematical fluency software programme, widely used in schools in the United States [62][63][64]. ...
... The problems teachers encounter in relation to their technological professional development stem from deficiencies in their initial [40] and ongoing training, and from the classroom reality itself, where teaching remains focused on transmissive rather than transformative models [42,44]. The impact of this on student learning is clearly detrimental [57,80]. The study illustrates the symbolic role of digital technology as an indicator of educational improvement and innovation [81], but also the absence of any associated strengthening or promotion of teacher professional development. ...
The aim of this article is to explore the role of teacher professional development (TPD) in relation to two experiences involving digital technology. Both studies were conducted at a single combined primary and secondary school and involved a total of 727 students. The first study consisted of an ex post facto analysis of attempts to improve student perception of the risks associated with inappropriate use of technology, while the second examined the possible benefits of gamified learning on mathematical fluency using a pre-test/post-test approach. The results reveal the lack of TPD in relation to both experiences, with teachers unable to overcome problems related to technology use and risk perception in the first case, and relegated to the role of mere implementers of an automated learning software product in the second. The conclusions highlight the contradiction between the image of technological innovation in schools and the reality of stasis in teaching practice, as well as the need for further research to assess and promote more effective TPD.
... As researchers widely recognise the potential of educational video games, classroom interventions are being designed and developed using serious games as a knowledge transmission tool in subjects such as critical thinking [31], sexual health [32], safety [33], [34], or mathematics [35]. However, this growing application of educational video games in learning awakens the urgent need to investigate their application in the pedagogical context, as well as the design and development process of these [36], to ensure that it is an effective means to cover the pedagogical objectives proposed by educators. ...
The Internet and technology have flooded all the activities of our daily lives, making digitalisation a reality. Education is no stranger to this reality and is beginning to incorporate new learning methodologies in the classroom. Methodologies such as game-based learning are presented as appropriate solutions for digital generations, leading the video game industry to produce in a less controlled way. Therefore, this research aims to systematise the scientific production of serious games by studying methodological models and processes for both the creation and evaluation of educational video games and identifying common patterns and differential elements. To this end, a systematic literature review of existing models was carried out under the PRISMA protocol. An initial sample of 13,692 articles was used to arrive at the 15 studies included in this review, following the eligibility criteria of the PICO model. The results show that, although there is a certain unanimity in the methodologies of the different authors, aspects, such as the iteration of the process or the inclusion of teachers in the creation of the video game, must be sufficiently considered. This review led to the creation of SCHEMA, a methodological model for designing serious games that incorporates these deficiencies.
... SGs are used in many areas, including education, training, and healthcare [55]. They have proven to be an efective tool through which people can be taught professional as well as (pro)social skills [7,34,86]. ...
