A Historical Text-Based Game Designed to Develop Critical Thinking Skills

Abstract

Designing an intervention that can effectively develop critical thinking skills is challenging because of the problems of transfer and domain specificity. The authors describe the design and development of a text-based game that could teach players important critical thinking skills in the domain of history. This was achieved by combining Schon's reflective practitioner model with game-based learning principles. The work contributes to the existing literature because the combination of the models employed allowed the game design to address the problem of transfer, as well as developing critical thinking skills. The instrument used to evaluate the effectiveness of the game was a questionnaire based on the reflective practitioner model. The gathered qualitative data were analysed through affinity diagramming. The results show that the game that was developed has the potential to encourage advanced levels of historical thought, as well as critical thinking skills.