The influence of learning and gaming coherence on the effectiveness of serious games

When creating digital game-based applications in educational contexts, a key aspect is how to combine the game and the learning part into a serious game that is both fun and effective. Such games can coarsely be categorized into games where learning and game parts are tightly linked together, and games that feature an exchangeable learning content. The former type gives game developers a high degree of freedom for integrating the learning content in a meaningful way. The latter type, on the other hand, allows non-expert game creators, such as teachers, to create customized games by using easy-to-use authoring components. In this work we examine both categories of games concerning their potential effectiveness and accessibility. We use two games: one that combines a generic game scenario with exchangeable quiz questions, and a second one with specialized content for teaching historic knowledge. Two comparative studies with a total of over 60 participants have been conducted with both games. The first study focuses on the effects of a game-based approach in comparison to one without game elements. The second study compares a generic game environment to one where game and learning content matches. Results show that the second game variant is able to produce better results in terms of fun and learning effectiveness. However, the generic variant still is able to produce good results with the benefit of not having to invest an additional development effort. These considerations are further elaborated to give practical advice for the creators of learning games.