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Serious games (SG) are innovative tools that are widely recognized as having considerable potential to foster and support active learning. This article addresses the question of whether and how SG can contribute to the development of the so-called “21st century skills” in education. This article starts by characterizing the current need for 21st ce...
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Game-based learning using interactive environments to impart theoretical and applied knowledge for introductory programming courses is divided in two popular approaches: " game making " and " game playing ". Various studies have been conducted following greatly the former approach in secondary and tertiary education with controversial results. Howe...
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... Consequently, activities that align with students' interests, especially those based on real-life experiences organized into narratives to solve contextual problems, are highly effective (Rocha & Dondio, 2021). Additionally, serious games are more effective when they contribute to developing 21st-century skills such as critical thinking, problem-solving, and collaboration (Romero et al., 2015). This approach has been proven to enhance primary school students' logical-mathematical, naturalistic, and linguistic abilities (Pérez et al., 2018). ...
Este estudio tiene como objetivo investigar el impacto de una aplicación móvil especialmente diseñada, GAUBI, en la competencia ortográfica del español por estudiantes de Educación Primaria. Utilizando un diseño cuasi-experimental, se plantea la hipótesis de que GAUBI mejoraría significativamente el rendimiento ortográfico. Además, examinamos la relación entre el tipo y la duración del juego, específicamente los juegos arcade, de investigación y de ficción, y las mejoras en la competencia ortográfica. El estudio involucró a 114 estudiantes españoles de Educacion Primaria, quienes completaron un pretest para establecer su nivel de competencia ortográfica. Tras un período de uso de la aplicación, se administró una prueba posttest para evaluar los cambios en el rendimiento. El contenido de las pruebas pretest y posttest se alinearon con el currículo de Educación Primaria en español. Las pruebas t de muestras emparejadas compararon las puntuaciones de los resultados del pretest y posttest, revelando mejoras estadísticamente significativas en el rendimiento ortográfico, con un tamaño del efecto grande (d de Cohen = 0.80). Los coeficientes de correlación de Pearson exploraron la asociación entre el tipo de juego y los resultados ortográficos, identificando correlaciones positivas significativas para los juegos de "Investigación" y "Ficción", mientras que los juegos "Arcade" no mostraron una relación clara. Estos hallazgos sugieren que los juegos basados en narrativas e investigación son particularmente efectivos para mejorar las habilidades ortográficas. Los resultados apoyan el uso de la gamificación, especialmente a través de juegos colaborativos y ricos en narrativas, como una estrategia beneficiosa para practicar la ortografía en español.
... Voices of Teachers and Teacher Educators 38 evaluating information from a wide variety of subjects and sources with an understanding of and respect for diverse culture (Rich, Elizabeth, 2010). For this purpose Fidel-and Trilling (as cited in Romero, Usart and Ott, 2015) defines 21 st century skills as the new set of skills required for success in learning, working and living. Michaels, Truesdell & Brown (2015) defined the 21 st century skills for pre-service teachers in a comprehensible manner as mentioned below in Table 1. ...
... This demand brings new paradigms in educational praxis, with new challenges and ways of learning and generating knowledge, especially in the case of scientific and mathematical content [7,8]. Digital resources are presented as powerful tools that allow changes in the approach to teaching and learning processes, based on the demands of society [9]. ...
Educational Robotics has had an important impact in recent years as it offers a number of advantages for students. The inclusion of robotics in any educational stage requires teachers with adequate predisposition and training, making it necessary to know the opinions of pre-service teachers. The aim of our study is to analyze the perceptions and self-confidence of 109 pre-service primary education teachers before and after an intervention based on educational robotics and challenge-based learning to teach scientific and mathematical content, in their third academic year. A quasi-experimental design was used involving pretest and posttest, using the nonparametric Mann-Whitney and Wilcoxon U tests. The results showed a significant improvement in the overall mean self-confidence. In addition, the intervention led to a more positive perception of the benefits and possibilities of robotics for teaching of scientific and mathematical content, although it also increased the difficulties of implementation due to the lack of training in this digital resource. It is concluded that interventions are required based on educational robotics that allow pre-service teachers to gain the necessary self-confidence and perception to facilitate its introduction for the teaching of scientific and mathematical content.
... The advent of the knowledge-based economy and constant worldwide changes led to the immergence of 21st century skills and their respective frameworks of reference (Binkley et al., 2011;Dede, 2010;Romero et al., 2015a). Throughout literature, one can identify various definitions and classifications of 21st century skills with multiple perspectives. ...
... Following this initial commencement, several other frameworks that explain 21 st century skills were developed by different education or employment related institutions. These frameworks were based on educational needs analysis and categorization of skills (Romero et al., 2015a), while majority of the frameworks were consistent with a central focus on metacognitive abilities such as innovative thinking, creative problem solving, communication, and collaboration. ...
A quick search on Google Scholar for the exact phrase ‘21st century skills’ resulted in three thousand plus results. More than two-third of these are dated within the last decade, indicating growing attention to the topic in the academia. The purpose of the current study is to investigate existing literature on 21st century skills by employing techniques of bibliometric and science mapping analysis to provide a helicopter view of scholarly work on 21st century skills. The search was conducted on SCOPUS database during 2021 using the keyword ‘21st century skills’ which produced 1644 results. Further refinements were made using publication year, document type and language reducing the sample size to 1281 documents. Data were analysed employing various bibliometric indicators such as number of publications, contributing authors, institutions and countries, citation, co-citation, and keywords. The results indicated an exponential growth in the number scholarly publication on the topic since 2010. Similarly, a positive trend in average citations was also observed in recent years. USA was the biggest contributor to the number of publications, followed by Indonesia, and Malaysia respectively. With respect to author collaboration, Nussbaum, M. was found the highest collaborator, followed by Griffin P., and Sharples M. while among the institutions, University of Melbourne was at the top. Analysis of the keywords revealed that, specific 21st century skills, learning tools and processes, technological advancement, and education and training are amongst the most common research themes. Findings of the current study provide insights into future research trends on the topic of 21st century skills.
... It is possible that in the serious instructional context, students may have been more engaged and inclined to exchange their knowledge about the different concepts, which later resulted in a better knowledge growth for recall tasks. This would be consistent with research showing that feedback and debriefs are prerequisites for GBL benefits (Erhel & Jamet, 2013;Romero et al., 2015). Finally, the present work also fuels the Learning Mechanics and Game Mechanics (LM-GM) framework (Arnab et al., 2015), emphasizing that it is possible to select entertainment or commercial-off-the-shelf games that present matching game and learning mechanics. ...
... Concurrently, the influence of VR technology on this sector is anticipated to escalate, with a projected worth of 36 billion US dollars by 2025 [39]. Advocates for gaming argue that video games provide an interactive learning environment that surpasses mere entertainment, underscoring their capacity to improve cognitive abilities, critical thinking, self-discipline, problem-solving, and creativity [11,66,102,111,113]. They highlight the educational content embedded in many games, asserting that gaming can be an engaging method for gaining proficiency in various subjects [38]. ...
... A sophisticated multimodal experience that mimics the complexity of real-life tasks is also seen to heighten engagement and facilitate grasp of abstract notions (Dayoub, 2019, p. 803). Further, modelling rich and authentic scenarios and challenges that are inquiry-based and grounded in real-life research is considered a property of 21 st -century games (Romero, Ott, and Usart, 2015;Jan and Jaydon, 2016). Such games have the potential to promote higher-order thinking and problem-solving skills that are more compatible with job market demands than content mastery is (Jan and Gaydon, 2016, p.10). ...
The past decade has witnessed an unprecedented surge in technological advancements and an exponential growth in mobile device ownership world-wide. Such transformations have intensified access to digital content, opening up new avenues for non-formal learning. This was particularly true during subsequent crises such as the COVID-19 Pandemic and natural and man-made disasters which have disrupted formal learning and left many learners immobilised. This paper contends that capitalising on the intersection of formal and non-formal learning experiences is integral to innovative planning and value-added education. To dismiss engagement in non-formal leaning transactions is to exclude a significant part of learners’ cognitive processes, preferences and experiences. In particular, this paper focuses on vernacular digital games as an apt example of pervasive technology and a non-formal learning arena. Described as a popular culture text, vernacular games are originally intended for entertainment, as opposed to pedagogical, purposes. However, embedded in their designs are social and developmental affordances that render them potent tools for serendipitous learning and dynamic spaces for developing competencies. In the light of this, this paper proposes a move from gamification, i.e. adding a gaming layer to non-gaming contexts, to adding an educational layer to non-formal digital gaming contexts. To consolidate this proposal, it investigates the 21st-century competencies reportedly acquired and developed through digital gameplay. It also delves into possible design-related paradoxes. More precisely, the paper reflects on how key game design features such as multimodality, adaptivity, cultural narratives and affinity spaces can be harnessed to better cultivate much in-demand 21st-century skills. Although learning skills (in their metacognitive form of higher-order thinking) are part and parcel of 21st-century skills, literacy skills and life skills are equally important. The further longer-term aim is to map development opportunities and optimise learning in ways that are in harmony with today’s changing scenarios, demands and objectives.
... Games are a form of active learning that enable the learner to have some control of the game activity and engage in interaction (Gee, 2004). Game-based learning (GBL) is grounded in active learning methodologies and encourages learning activities by building on engagement and challenges to achieve the intended learning objectives (Romero et al., 2015). ...
Open Data refers to digital data that is made available to anyone with the legal and technical conditions to be freely used, reused, and redistributed. Although it has emerged as a new common with the potential to increase citizen participation and transparency, current literature suggests the lack of skills for managing data and participating in Open Data processes, as one of the main barriers to achieve these benefits. Integrating Open Data in school education has been recognized as key to fostering a larger community able to participate in Open Data ecosystems. This study showcases the design of a role-playing game grounded in authentic learning principles for the development of Open Data competencies in elementary school. The Open Data Newsroom is a game approach that immerses students in solving a mystery with data. In the game, students play Open Data Journalists engaging in a three-phase authentic process to get, understand and deliver data. The learning goal in the game is that students build open data competencies: data literacy and real-world problem solving. A design-based research methodological approach is applied to develop theory based and practically grounded educational designs. Two interventions in Danish schools have been conducted, each one with the participation of seventeen students in 7th to 9th grade and three teachers. Interventions are aimed at iteratively designing and testing the game. The discussion section elaborates on opportunities for redesigning and systematically developing the game as a learning design for Open Data competencies.
... Within the scope of our analysis, it was noticed that the existing literature uses many different terms for the 4Cs. This may occur because there has not been a widely accepted definition for them yet (Romero et al., 2015). Even more, there has not been an accepted definition and framework for the 4Cs focused on the kindergarten age to facilitate us to track them effortlessly in kindergarten and promote them effectively. ...
Communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity are regarded as core skills of the twenty-first century required to succeed in life and working frameworks. Meanwhile, new technologies have entered educational settings to facilitate children’s development of competencies. During the last decade, several studies have been conducted to investigate the potential impact of educational robotics on children’s skills. Yet, only a few have examined the promotion of communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity from an early age with the means of real robots through quantitative analysis in educational settings. Thus, a gap in meta-analysis studies is identified in this research area. In this paper, 22 empirical articles out of 2141 records from four databases and two registers were employed. Additionally, 53 effect sizes involving 2192 participants emerging from the search were subjected to a meta-analysis investigating the effects of educational robotics on kindergarteners’ communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity. The results showed that robots may enhance collaboration the most among young learners (effect size: 0.875) and may contribute to their communicative skills (effect size: 0.481). Additionally, their cognitive development might be improved by facilitating their critical thinking (effect size: 0.561), and creativity may be affected positively too (effect size: 0.511). Yet, moderator analysis indicated that further and long-lasting studies are required. Finally, extra training and support to educators about robotics learning are recommended.
... Serious games could act as a complementary tool to support the development of emotional intelligence, which is needed to equip students with emotional skills for a better quality of life and to successfully adapt to modern society and environmental demands [20]. In addition, serious games that focus on improving emotional skills strengthen the immune system, making it more resilient, as emotional intelligence contributes positively to coping with stressors, resulting in better homeostasis and fitness [21]. ...
The potential of digital games to enhance learning in various areas of child development has attracted increasing interest in children’s emotional well-being and social–emotional difficulties. The present serious game named “The Park of Emotions” was based on the nine-level pyramid model of emotional intelligence, had conceptual relevance to the questions of a new emotional intelligence scale, and served as an intervention tool. The aim was to experimentally evaluate to what extent the serious game “The Park of Emotions” improved children’s emotional intelligence through the improvised scale measuring the emotional intelligence of children aged 9–12. The study was conducted on a group of 436 children aged 9–10 years, 4th grade. To assess the impact of the program, an analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted on the experimental group and the control group at the pre-test stage, as well as an analysis of covariance (ANCOVA post-test). The results for the post-intervention ANCOVA confirmed the existence of significant differences between the groups, as participants in the experimental group had significantly higher scores compared to participants in the control group on the total score and individual subscales. Furthermore, ANCOVA results confirmed that the intervention had a similar positive effect for both sexes. Consequently, this study experimentally validates an effective intervention tool, highlighting the importance of implementing digital games aimed at improving emotional intelligence and emotional skills throughout childhood and preadolescence. “The Park of Emotions” could be considered a useful serious game that affects personal, emotional, and social factors.
