Creating Gameful Experience as an Innovative Approach in the Digital era

Abstract

In the current digitalization era, games have become a crucial new method for digital game-based learning (DGBL) in higher education. Regarding the use of games in DGBL, the development of meaningful learning experiences within games, i.e., gameful experience (GE), among students is decisive, as GE is a necessary precondition determining the effectiveness of games. Therefore, this study provides deeper insights into the GE and empirically investigates the factors creating GE among students. Grounded in the theory of experience, a double-mediation model is developed that considers instructional support, group engagement, and flow as determinants of students’ GE. Based on data from 336 students participating in a team-based business simulation game at two universities in Germany, regression-based mediation analysis revealed that instructional support promoted students’ GE. However, in this relationship, the interpersonal factor, group engagement, alone did not indirectly create students’ GE in terms of absorption and dominance. Instead, the individual factor, flow, mediated the corresponding relationship. Furthermore, group engagement and flow together sequentially double-mediated the relationship between instructional support and GE. Consequently, in the context of DGBL, appropriate instructional support as well as high levels of group engagement and flow are important to create students’ GE.