Collaborative Gameplay Research Articles

Enhancing Freshman English Learning: A Study of Solo vs Collaborative Educational Gameplay Effects on Achievement and Motivation

This research compared the effects of solo and collaborative gameplay formats on learning achievement and motivation among freshmen English students. Sixty students were randomly assigned to play educational games either individually or in small groups over ten weeks. While both groups received similar instructional time, one played independently using individual devices, while the other played in small groups sharing a single device. A pre-test and post-test design was used, with a 20 multiple-choice exam assessing freshman English knowledge. A modified Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire was also administered to measure five dimensions of motivation (intrinsic goal orientation, extrinsic goal orientation, task value beliefs, control beliefs, and self-efficacy for learning). Post-test scores were significantly higher for the collaborative gameplay group, suggesting team-based interaction enhanced learning. However, a MANOVA showed no significant differences between groups on any of the motivation dimensions measured. The findings demonstrate collaborative gameplay may boost achievement without compromising motivation when compared to solo gameplay.

The Novelty of Collaboration: High School Students Learning and Enjoyment Perceptions When Playing Cooperative Modern Board Games

Modern board games are changing the way people play analogue face-to-face multiplayer games. One of the novelties of this trend is the growing prevalence of games that offer collaborative gameplay. These cooperative games have been instrumental in shifting the demographic of players, attracting individuals who prefer engaging in constructive interactions rather than destructive confrontations. Likewise, playing cooperative games demand specific players' skills which can be associated with the concept of soft skills. Training these skills through modern cooperative board games, whether by modifying existing games or developing new ones as serious games or using gamification approaches, holds promising potential. To test the perception of students playing cooperative modern board games for the first time, we organized a one-day play session in a school environment, specifically in a classroom with the support of the students’ teachers. Over a period of six hours (three in the morning and three in the afternoon), a total of 25 high school students from the vocational multimedia area, comprising students of all genders, participated in the session. The students engaged in gameplay with a curated selection of four cooperative modern board games. The results indicate that the students enjoyed the game sessions and recognized the significance of collaboration, as well as the associated skills including communication, empathy, organization, focus, and complementary interactions. The experiment reinforces the suggestion that the used modern board games could be introduced during classes as engaging activities fit for learning and training.

Synthesizing Game Levels for Collaborative Gameplay in a Shared Virtual Environment

We developed a method to synthesize game levels that accounts for the degree of collaboration required by two players to finish a given game level. We first asked a game level designer to create playable game level chunks. Then, two artificial intelligence (AI) virtual agents driven by behavior trees played each game level chunk. We recorded the degree of collaboration required to accomplish each game level chunk by the AI virtual agents and used it to characterize each game level chunk. To synthesize a game level, we assigned to the total cost function cost terms that encode both the degree of collaboration and game level design decisions. Then, we used a Markov-chain Monte Carlo optimization method, called simulated annealing, to solve the total cost function and proposed a design for a game level. We synthesized three game levels (low, medium, and high degrees of collaboration game levels) to evaluate our implementation. We then recruited groups of participants to play the game levels to explore whether they would experience a certain degree of collaboration and validate whether the AI virtual agents provided sufficient data that described the collaborative behavior of players in each game level chunk. By collecting both in-game objective measurements and self-reported subjective ratings, we found that the three game levels indeed impacted the collaboration gameplay behavior of our participants. Moreover, by analyzing our collected data, we found moderate and strong correlations between the participants and the AI virtual agents. These results show that game developers can consider AI virtual agents as an alternative method for evaluating the degree of collaboration required to finish a game level.

Do games reduce maths anxiety? A meta-analysis

In this paper, we present the first meta-analysis of the efficacy of game-based interventions on reducing students’ levels of maths anxiety. After searching for randomised studies describing game-based interventions to reduce maths anxiety, 22 effect sizes with 913 participants described in 15 peer-review articles met the selection criteria. A random effects meta-analysis indicated a reduction of maths anxiety with a small effect size (mean effect size ES = −0.24, CI = [ − 0.47, −0.01]), marginally significant at 0.05 level but not robust to a leave-one-out sensitivity analysis. Several factors moderated the results: non-digital games were more effective, while digital games had a negligible mean effect size of ES = −0.10, CI = [ − 0.24, 0.03]. The effect size was also moderated by the total duration of the intervention, to the advantage of longer interventions, and by the type of gameplay: games had a greater effect on maths anxiety reduction when they promoted collaborative and social interactions. Such features were mainly present in non-digital games, while all bar one of the digital interventions used single-player games. The results obtained, which were particularly weak for digital games, indicated the need to develop and test games explicitly designed for maths-anxious students to increase the impact of game-based interventions. This will require investigation into the relationship between game features and maths anxiety through analysis of the behaviour of anxious and non-anxious students at play. Among the features that an anxiety-aware game could employ, we suggest collaborative gameplay, social interactions, adaptability, features promoting intrinsic motivation and embedding real-time measurements of maths anxiety in the game.

LINA - A Social Augmented Reality Game around Mental Health, Supporting Real-world Connection and Sense of Belonging for Early Adolescents

Early adolescence is a time of major social change; a strong sense of belonging (SB) and peer connectedness is an essential protective factor in mental health (MH) during that period. In this paper we introduce LINA, an augmented reality (AR) smartphone-based serious game played in school by an entire class (age 10+) together with their teacher, which aims to facilitate and improve peer interaction, SB and class climate, while creating a safe space to reflect on MH and external stressors related to family circumstance. LINA was developed through an interdisciplinary collaboration involving a playwright, software developers, psychologists and artists, via an iterative co-development process with young people. A prototype has been evaluated quantitatively for usability and qualitatively for efficacy in a study with 91 early adolescents (agemean=11.41). Results from the Game User Experience Satisfaction Scale (GUESS-18) and data from qualitative focus groups showed high acceptability and preliminary efficacy of the game. Using AR, a shared immersive narrative and collaborative gameplay in a shared physical space offers an opportunity to harness adolescent affinity for digital technology towards improving real-world social connection and SB.

Assessing negotiation skill and its development in an online collaborative simulation game: A social network analysis study

AbstractSimulation games are widely used to teach negotiation skills in political science education. However, existing studies focus on the impact of simulation games on students' knowledge gains and affective changes and largely ignore skill assessment and development in the gaming environment. This study aimed to understand the process of student groups practicing negotiation skills in a collaborative simulation game through social network analysis (SNA). We proposed a conceptual framework to assess negotiation skills by identifying different negotiation skillsets based on participatory roles in collaborative learning, investigated the skill development through the change of the skillsets over time, and examined the relationship between the negotiation skillsets and achievement. The results showed that the majority of student groups practiced more complex negotiation skillsets towards the end of the game, and the complexity of skillsets was positively related to the negotiation outcomes in the simulation game. The study demonstrated the possibilities of using SNA as an analytical tool to measure negotiation skills and explore dynamic skill development in a collaborative simulation game. It has also shown the potential of integrating SNA in a collaborative gaming environment for automated analysis of a large volume of data concerning interactions.Practitioner notesWhat is already known about this topic Simulation games are widely used to teach negotiation skills in political science education to improve the connection between theoretical knowledge and skill practice. Existing studies focus on the impact of simulation games on learners' knowledge gains and affective changes but ignore the skill assessment and development in the gaming environment, especially in the collaborative simulated gaming environment. What this paper adds The study investigated the process of student groups practicing negotiation skills in a collaborative simulation game through Social Network Analysis (SNA). We proposed a novel conceptual framework to measure negotiation skills by identifying different negotiation skillsets through connecting them to learners' participatory roles that emerged during the collaborative gameplay. The study demonstrated learners' dynamic and evolutionary process of practicing negotiation skills in the game. The results showed that there was a positive relationship between the complexity of negotiation skillsets and negotiation outcomes in the game. Implications for practice and/or policy The study demonstrates the possibilities of using SNA as an analytical tool to measure negotiation skills and explore dynamic skill development in a collaborative gaming environment. The results can guide teachers to identify risky game moves and students in need and provide personalized feedback to help improve students' negotiation skills. The findings can help teachers optimize the game design to ensure students' equal and active participation in the game. The study highlights the potential of integrating SNA in collaborative gaming environments for automated analysis of a large volume of data concerning interactions.

Investigating the Effects of Individual Cognitive Styles on Collaborative Gameplay

In multiplayer collaborative games, players need to coordinate their actions and synchronize their efforts effectively to succeed as a team; thus, individual differences can impact teamwork and gameplay. This article investigates the effects of cognitive styles on teams engaged in collaborative gaming activities. Fifty-four individuals took part in a mixed-methods user study; they were classified as field-dependent (FD) or independent (FI) based on a field-dependent–independent (FD-I) cognitive-style-elicitation instrument. Three groups of teams were formed, based on the cognitive style of each team member: FD-FD, FD-FI, and FI-FI. We examined collaborative gameplay in terms of team performance, cognitive load, communication, and player experience. The analysis revealed that FD-I cognitive style affected the performance and mental load of teams. We expect the findings to provide useful insights on understanding how cognitive styles influence collaborative gameplay.

Affective states in digital game-based learning: Thematic evolution and social network analysis.

Research has indicated strong relationships between learners' affect and their learning. Emotions relate closely to students' well-being, learning quality, productivity, and interaction. Digital game-based learning (DGBL) has been widely recognized to be effective in enhancing learning experiences and increasing student motivation. The field of emotions in DGBL has become an active research field with accumulated literature available, which calls for a comprehensive understanding of the up-to-date literature concerning emotions in virtual DGBL among students at all educational levels. Based on 393 research articles collected from the Web of Science, this study, for the first time, explores the current advances and topics in this field. Specifically, thematic evolution analysis is conducted to explore the evolution of topics that are categorized into four different groups (i.e., games, emotions, applications, and analytical technologies) in the corpus. Social network analysis explores the co-occurrences between topics to identify their relationships. Interesting results are obtained. For example, with the integration of diverse applications (e.g., mobiles) and analytical technologies (e.g., learning analytics and affective computing), increasing types of affective states, socio-emotional factors, and digital games are investigated. Additionally, implications for future research include 1) children's anxiety/attitude and engagement in collaborative gameplay, 2) individual personalities and characteristics for personalized support, 3) emotion dynamics, 4) multimodal data use, 5) game customization, 6) balance between learners' skill levels and game challenge as well as rewards and learning anxiety.

A social robot’s influence on children’s figural creativity during gameplay

Abstract Children’s creativity is influenced by their social interactions with co-present peers during collaborative tasks, which digital pedagogical tools lack. Children are known to emulate social agents’ behaviors. In this work, we explore how a social robot’s co-presence and creativity demonstration influences children’s creative expression during collaborative gameplay. Children played a digital drawing game that afforded figural creativity with a social robot (Jibo) as a peer-like playmate. To understand the effect of the robot’s co-presence on children’s creativity, we compared the creative expression of participants who played the game with Jibo, and a control group of participants who played in the absence of Jibo. No significant gains in creativity were observed. In a second study, we then enhanced the robot’s behavior to express and model figural creativity during gameplay. To understand the effect of the robot’s creativity demonstration, we compared the figural creativity of participants’ drawings who played the game with Jibo while it modeled creative behaviors, with participants who played with a version of Jibo that did not. Children expressed significantly higher levels of figural creativity while interacting with the robot that modeled creative behavior through its drawings. We infer that while embodied co-presence was not a significant stimulant of creative expression, creativity demonstration led to heightened figural creativity. We suggest guidelines for designing robotic interactions to foster creative expression in children, highlighting the role of social emulation in influencing behavior.

Effects of solo vs. collaborative play in a digital learning game on geometry: Results from a K12 experiment

Digital games for learning are one of the most prominent examples of the use of technologies in the classroom, where numerous studies have presented promising results among children and adolescents. However, scarce evidence exists regarding different ways of implementing games within the classroom and how those affect students' learning and behaviors. In this study we explore the effect that collaboration can have in digital gameplay in a K12 context. More specifically, we have designed a 2 × 2 experimental study in which high school first year students participated in solo or collaborative gameplay in pairs, solving puzzles of diverse difficulty, using Shadowspect, a digital game on geometry. Our main results, computed by applying learning analytics on the trace data results, suggest that students playing solo had higher in-game engagement and solved more puzzles, while students collaborating were less linear in their pathways, skipping more tutorial levels and were more exploratory with Shadowspect features. These significant differences that we observe in solo and collaborative gameplay call for more experimentation around the effect of having K12 students collaborate on digital tasks, so that teachers can take better decisions about how to implement these practices in the classrooms of the future.

Setting the digital stage: Defining game streaming as an entertainment experience

Game streaming—viewing live or recorded broadcasts of others’ video game play—has become widely popular in recent years due to the emergence of platforms such as Twitch and YouTube Gaming. We position game streaming as a form of collaborative game play, with implications for how we study games and communication. We first review the social history of gaming before explicating game streaming as a gaming activity that involves public performance and varying levels of social interaction and synchrony. The influence of these three core elements on the uses, processes, and effects of game streaming as an entertainment activity are discussed through the twin perspectives of communication and media psychology.

Collaboration and Gender Equity in Game-Based Learning for Middle School Computer Science

Game-based learning environments can deliver robust learning gains and have a significant capacity to engage students. Yet, they can unintentionally disadvantage students with less prior game experience. This article presents evidence that a collaborative gameplay approach can effectively address this problem at the middle school level. In an iterative, designed-based research study, the authors first used an experimental pilot study to investigate the nature of collaboration in the Engage game-based learning environment and then deployed Engage in a full classroom study to measure its effectiveness at supporting all students during computer science learning. In early phases of the intervention, male students outpaced female peers in learning gains. However, female students caught up during a multiweek classroom implementation. These findings provide evidence that gender differences could dissipate over time within collaborative game-based learning experiences in computer science.

Child–robot interaction across cultures: How does playing a game with a social robot compare to playing a game alone or with a friend?

The present study investigates how children from two different cultural backgrounds (Pakistani, Dutch) and two different age groups (8 and 12year olds) experience interacting with a social robot (iCat) during collaborative game play. We propose a new method to evaluate children’s interaction with such a robot, by asking whether playing a game with a state-of-the-art social robot like the iCat is more similar to playing this game alone or with a friend. A combination of self-report scores, perception test results and behavioral analyses indicate that child–robot interaction in game playing situations is highly appreciated by children, although more by Pakistani and younger children than by Dutch and older children. Results also suggest that children enjoyed playing with the robot more than playing alone, but enjoyed playing with a friend even more. In a similar vein, we found that children were more expressive in their non-verbal behavior when playing with the robot than when they were playing alone, but less expressive than when playing with a friend. Our results not only stress the importance of using new benchmarks for evaluating child–robot interaction but also highlight the significance of cultural differences for the design of social robots.

Fifth Graders' Flow Experience in a Digital Game-Based Science Learning Environment

This mixed methods study examined 73 5th graders' flow experience in a game-based science learning environment using two gameplay approaches (solo and collaborative gameplay). Both survey and focus group interview findings revealed that students had high flow experience; however, there were no flow experience differences that were contingent upon gameplay approaches. Results identified four game design features and student personal factors (reading proficiency) that significantly impacted student game flow experience. Students made significant science content learning gains as a result of gameplay, but game flow experience did not predict learning gains. The study demonstrated that the game was effective in supporting students' flow experience and science content learning. The findings indicated that the adapted game flow experience survey provided a satisfactory measure of students' game flow experience. The results also have implications for educational game design, as game design features that significantly contributed to students' flow experience were identified.

City Ville: collaborative game play, communication and skill development in social networks

Abstract This paper has as its aim to analyze how CityVille, a videogame hosted on Facebook and oriented to the construction of a virtual city, can favor collaboration between gamers along with the exchange of strategies, equally contributing to learning transfer and skill acquisition. The first step consists in identifying the opportunities which the said game can offer in order to develop skills and promote learning formats linked with planning and resource management, after which a presentation is made of the opinions expressed by a sample of gamers (N=105) –belonging to the Fans-CityVille community– about the priorities established by them to communicate with their neighbors and the skills that they believe to have acquired playing this game. 85.7% of them state that they communicate with others to share strategies and expand their city. Unlike women, who value collaboration, men prioritize competition. Designing their city has enhanced a number of gamer skills in different proportions: creative skills (71.4%); organizational ones (68.0%); skills associated with decision-making and problem-solving (67.0%); and interpersonal skills through interaction with others (61.9%). The CityVille game mode favors skill development and helps to create a ludic atmosphere of collaboration and optimal strategy exchange through communication between neighbors by strengthening their mutual relationships. Its formula moves away from the often-criticized competitive practices of other games.

Aligning technological and pedagogical considerations: Harnessing touch-technology to enhance opportunities for collaborative gameplay and reciprocal teaching in NZ early education

New Zealand early childhood education (ECE) aims to provide a mix of teacher and child-led learning. A non-prescriptive curriculum allows for broad and rich early years teaching and learning experiences, with teachers responsive to devising engaging activities to align with children’s diverse interests. However, such spontaneity presents an on-going challenge for teachers. Using a combination of Action Research, elements of User-Centered and Participatory Design, and Scrum software development approaches, we conducted a multi-disciplinary study which leveraged joint contributions of software engineers and experts, including practitioners (teachers), users (children and teachers), and domain experts (in ECE curriculum and pedagogy, and early childhood psychology). Examination of teacher–child interactions with our software demonstrated that our game was engaging, promoted collaborative gameplay (by promoting mutual awareness, opportunities for information, and equitable control) and supported reciprocal teaching (by aligning children’s interests with content knowledge). Finally, it opens new avenues for introducing research and pedagogy-informed interactive educational software in the NZ ECE domain.

The impact of individual, competitive, and collaborative mathematics game play on learning, performance, and motivation.

The present research examined how mode of play in an educational mathematics video game impacts learning, performance, and motivation. The game was designed for the practice and automation of arithmetic skills to increase fluency and was adapted to allow for individual, competitive, or collaborative game play. Participants (N 58) from urban middle schools were randomly assigned to each experimental condition. Results suggested that, in comparison to individual play, competition increased in-game learning, whereas collaboration decreased performance during the experimental play session. Although out-of-game math fluency improved overall, it did not vary by condition. Furthermore, competition and collaboration elicited greater situational interest and enjoyment and invoked a stronger mastery goal orientation. Additionally, collaboration resulted in stronger intentions to play the game again and to recommend it to others. Results are discussed in terms of the potential for mathematics learning games and technology to increase student learning and motivation and to demonstrate how different modes of engagement can inform the instructional design of such games.

Designing collaborative multiplayer serious games

The idea of Computer Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) is being investigated for more than twenty years. Since a few years, game-based approaches like video games for learning (Serious Games) offer new fields of application. The combination of game-based learning concepts and collaborative learning may enable new, game-based application areas of CSCL, like collaborative multiplayer Serious Games. Designing such games, however, is very challenging as it requires to take into account traditional single player game design concepts, concepts for multiplayer game design, and concepts for Serious Game design simultaneously. Only very few examples of such games exist today. In this paper we describe an approach for the design of game-based collaborative learning scenarios using multiplayer Serious Games. Our approach aims at combining design concepts from the fields of collaborative learning and (multiplayer) game design. Our approach takes into account the requirements of traditional single player games (fun, narration, immersion, graphics, sound), challenges of multiplayer games (concurrent gaming, interaction) and Serious Game design (seamless inclusion of learning content, adaptation and personalization). Furthermore, requirements of collaborative learning are considered, like group goals, positive interdependence, and individual accountability. Our design concept was used to create a collaborative 3D multiplayer game fostering collaborative behavior as a foundation for game-based collaborative learning in small teams. We performed a user study with eight gaming sessions and a total of 23 participants. Results showed that the game enables a collaborative gameplay and fosters collaborative behavior. This may allow us to use a game-based CSCL approach to combine the advantages of game-based learning with those of collaborative learning in future.

Enhancing 5th graders’ science content knowledge and self-efficacy through game-based learning

Many argue that games can positively impact learning by providing an intrinsically motivating and engaging learning environment for students in ways that traditional school cannot. Recent research demonstrates that games have the potential to impact student learning in STEM content areas and that collaborative gameplay may be of particular importance for learning gains. This study investigated the effects of collaborative and single game player conditions on science content learning and science self-efficacy. Results indicated that there were no differences between the two playing conditions; however, when conditions were collapsed, science content learning and self-efficacy significantly increased. Future research should focus on the composition of collaboration interaction among game players to assess what types of collaborative tasks may yield positive learning gains.

Virtual worlds

AbstractGames, role‐playing, and simulations as developmental tools have been used in education since the 1800s. An emerging form of collaborative game play is virtual worlds; however, the use of virtual worlds in leadership education has not been fully investigated. The purpose of this article is to (a) demonstrate how virtual worlds are a viable venue for leadership education, and (b) present a hierarchy of skills sets that can be developed in virtual world settings. In doing so, this article provides evidence that virtual worlds can be used as a new instructional delivery environment for leadership education as the appeal and intrinsic nature of virtual environments aligns well with the experiential framework of leadership education.