Approaches to Detecting and Utilizing Play and Learning Styles in Adaptive Educational Games

Abstract

Games have emerged as promising tools to make learning more fun. Pedagogical effectiveness of an educational game can increase if its behavior changes according to learners’ play and learning styles. Several models for categorizing learning and play styles exist, but not many studies simultaneously detect and utilize both style groups. To alleviate this, as the first contribution, we analyzed and compared existing learning and play style models, and chose the most suitable one from each group. Personality style models were also discussed. We then created a questionnaire based on Honey and Mumford’s Learning Style Questionnaire and Bartle’s Player Types, and collected data from 127 South Korean elementary school children. The results indicated that specific play styles were clearly more dominant (Killer 18%, Achiever 24%, Explorer 32%, Socializer 41%), whereas dominant learning styles were distributed more evenly (Activist 33%, Reflector 37%, Theorist 20% and Pragmatist 25%). As the second contribution, we presented the foundations of a generic adaptation model for utilizing learning and play styles for designing adaptive educational games.