Educational Gaming and Situational Interest for Higher Education Students

This work-in-progress paper presents the design of Study 1 for the InPraktijk project, an educational mobile game developed by researchers at Utrecht University of Applied Sciences with the serious game company Game Tailors. The game simulates a physical therapy practice in which students take on the role of an intern, conducting patient medical-history conversations through multiple-choice dialogue and small categorization exercises. The central aim is to determine whether gamified delivery of course content generates greater situational interest than traditional static case formats, and to clarify the relationship between playful learning and situational interest among higher education students.

The authors frame their inquiry against a literature that shows situational interest is positively associated with learning outcomes in educational games, yet remains conceptually complex. Prior work indicates that triggering interest without sustaining it may have negative long-term effects on individual interest, and that game-based environments may mainly engage students who already find the subject interesting. The paper also notes that students may be motivated to play without being motivated to learn the content, underscoring the need to tightly align game mechanics with learning objectives.

The planned study will involve roughly 200 first-year physical therapy students over about eight weeks in the 2024–2025 academic year, randomly assigned to a game-based test group or a static online control group. Situational interest will be measured at five points using the Situational Interest Scale, supplemented by app telemetry such as time played, login attempts, and drop-out locations, and by semi-structured interviews. Analysis will rely on t-tests and Pearson correlations. Pilot testing with ten UX researchers and ten teachers precedes the main study, and the findings are intended to guide follow-up optimization and broader application across educational programs.