Games for Teaching and Learning History: A Systematic Literature Review

Games for Teaching and Learning History: A Systematic Literature Review examines how games have been used to teach history and geography in secondary education, with the aim of mapping the academic landscape and identifying gaps in research. Drawing on a Scopus search conducted in March 2022, the review screened 255 records and retained 78 works for its main analysis, with a narrower subset of 11 studies focused on commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) games. The review is organized around four questions: the types of publications, the games employed, the methodological approaches taken, and the extent to which the impact of COTS-based projects has been measured.

The review's central finding concerns the composition of the field. Conference papers (43) outnumber journal articles (35), suggesting a literature that is still emerging and often preliminary in nature. Most projects relied on custom-designed educational games, while only 11 used commercial games and just 4 involved students designing games themselves. The authors regard this scarcity as notable, given that research on COTS and student-designed games points to distinct benefits that remain underexploited in classroom settings.

The conclusions point to several areas for development. The authors call for more rigorous evaluation of game-based interventions, greater investment in teacher training, and research that more effectively connects academic findings with everyday classroom practice. Taken together, these recommendations suggest that the promise of games for history and geography instruction is well established in principle but has not yet been matched by systematic, well-evaluated implementation at the secondary level.