Progress Visualisation, Competition, and Collaboration in Digital Game-based Learning as Audience (DGBL-AA)

The paper proposes Digital Game-based Learning as Audience (DGBL-AA), a framework in which learners watch a subject-independent progress-visualisation game, "Frogs," that is linked to their learning scores. The framework is designed to reduce distraction, maximise time spent on learning, and keep implementation costs low. Its motivation draws on literature covering progress visualisation, gamification, and the costs associated with digital game-based learning, and it treats the audience role as a way of capturing the motivational benefits of games without requiring learners to play them directly.

The central empirical evidence comes from a 2023 quasi-experimental study with 54 children aged 8 to 9, divided among control, competition, and collaboration groups, along with two related studies testing the framework. In these studies, the experimental group (n=28, split across competition and collaboration modes) outperformed a control group (n=26) on recall tests, with means of 12.36 versus 10.77 (p=.009). The authors report that the framework enhanced engagement and learning outcomes. The competition group showed stronger performance than the collaboration group in the 2023 study, but the broader analysis found no significant difference between the two game modes (p=.218).

The research is limited in scope. It relies on a single game, a small sample, and one educational context, and the age range is restricted to young children. The authors acknowledge these constraints and identify future work on additional games, long-term effects, and broader implementation. As a result, the findings should be read as promising preliminary evidence for the audience-based approach rather than as established generalisable results for digital game-based learning across subjects, ages, or settings.