European Conference on Games Based Learning (ECGBL)
Annual European conference on game-based learning and serious games; its proceedings are published open access (CC BY) by Academic Conferences International.
Documents
Sortica: A VR Serious Game to Teach Scheduling Algorithms to Undergraduate Students
Sortica is a prototype immersive serious game designed to teach undergraduate students scheduling algorithms, specifically first-in-first-out (FIFO) and last-in-first-out (LIFO) logic.
- Sortica is a prototype VR serious game that teaches undergraduates FIFO and LIFO scheduling algorithms by having learners role-play a robot worker rebuilding town buildings, storifying abstract concepts into concrete tasks.
- In an evaluation with 23 valid participants across four sessions, pre-to-post test scores improved by an average of 14.13% (Wilcoxon W=42.5, p=0.019, rank biserial=0.89), a statistically significant gain.
- The result is tempered by a high pre-test baseline (scores from 56.52% to 78.26%) and the fact that 39% of participants scored perfectly before the intervention, which limits how strongly the gains can be interpreted.
Can You Even Read? Examining Literacy and AI Through Gameplay
Can You Even Read? is a research-creation paper by Nora Perry and Caighlan Smith that presents an educational simulation game examining how the contemporary attention economy erodes close reading skills and encourages reliance on generative AI.
- The paper argues that the attention economy, driven by notifications, advertising, and short-form content, conditions readers toward surface-level engagement and makes AI summarization tools an appealing way to avoid demanding close reading.
- Its central thesis is that the authors' educational game uses procedural rhetoric to make these pressures tangible, prompting players to reflect on what is lost when comprehension is outsourced to machines.
- The paper cites survey findings from Pew Research and other sources showing substantial shares of teenagers and postsecondary students using AI to summarize readings or complete assignments, with one undergraduate survey reporting over 40 percent admitting to uses explicitly prohibited by instructors.
Racing to Learn: A Formula 1-Inspired Gamification Framework that Sustains Motivation Through Repeated Competitive Cycles
This study evaluates a Formula 1-inspired gamification framework in a third-semester undergraduate Internet of Things course at Tecnológico de Monterrey, Mexico.
- A quasi-experimental study of 56 undergraduates at Tecnológico de Monterrey found gamified students scored higher on the final exam (mean 89.56 vs. 84.97, Cohen's d = 0.46), but the difference was not statistically significant (p = 0.087), so the advantage is suggestive rather than conclusive.
- The Formula 1-inspired framework assigned students to five racing teams who earned progress in meters through optional activities across three races over ten weeks, with periodic resets to sustain competition across repeated cycles.
- Engagement with optional activities correlated strongly with exam performance (r = 0.81), but the authors caution this does not establish causation, since motivated students may both engage more and perform better regardless of the framework.
Children in Digital Movement: Facilitating Exergame-based Learning
This study examines how teachers facilitate Exergame-Based Learning (EBL) in Danish early childhood education, using the MultiBall system in a qualitative single-case design.
- Learning in Exergame-Based Learning (EBL) emerges primarily from the facilitator rather than the technology itself, making strong pedagogical framing, classroom management, and skilled facilitation the decisive conditions for success.
- Teachers in the study shifted fluidly among instructor, coach, role model, and animator roles, using these shifts to connect physical movement, social participation, and academic goals.
- Regulating energy, intensity, and timing was central to outcomes, and open, unstructured facilitation tended to fragment children's attention.
Challenges in Implementing Game-based Learning in Accounting Education: A Scoping Review
This scoping review examines the challenges faced by accounting educators in implementing game-based learning (GBL) in higher education, along with the perceived impacts, opportunities, and instructor attitudes surrounding its use.
- Game-based learning remains underused in accounting education, partly because the difficulties of adopting it are poorly understood, which this scoping review (PRISMA framework, five databases, 2016–2026) sets out to address.
- Of 68 articles initially identified, only 11 were retained for analysis (nine on student perceptions, two on lecturer perspectives), so the evidence base on instructor experience is especially thin.
- The two principal barriers are time constraints, chiefly the labour-intensive creation and updating of game-specific content, and limited instructor knowledge combined with insufficient technical support.
Effects of Digital Escape Games on Motivation in Primary Mathematics Education
This study examines whether a digital educational escape game, built in the Genially platform and styled after Minecraft, can improve motivation and mathematical engagement among fifth-grade pupils.
- A one-group pretest-posttest study of 25 Czech fifth-graders (18 girls, 7 boys) using a Genially-built, Minecraft-styled digital escape game across seven primary-maths topics found statistically significant positive shifts on 8 of 10 semantic differential items, with the largest, moderate-to-strong effects on perceived difficulty and appeal of mathematics.
- Pupils reported lower stress and higher self-confidence after the intervention, but perceived procedural confidence did not change.
- Willingness to persist with difficult tasks declined significantly, which the authors call a "resilience paradox" and attribute to the rapid feedback typical of escape games reducing tolerance for prolonged cognitive effort.
Designing with Unpredictable Narrators: Tensions in AI-Mediated Game-Based Learning
This paper examines how generative AI reshapes pedagogical control in game-based learning, using Temporium, an AI-mediated educational game in which undergraduate students engage with historical consciousness through a generative narrative agent.
- The paper argues that generative AI introduces structural design tensions, not isolated technical bugs, in game-based learning, and that interaction dynamics must be understood before learning outcomes can be meaningfully evaluated.
- Based on analysis of 58 gameplay logs from 51 students in a single university course using the AI-mediated game Temporium, the study identifies five recurring tensions: instructional steering vs. generative agency, narrative coherence vs. exploratory freedom, information availability vs. interpretive participation, adaptivity vs. consistency, and engagement vs. epistemic depth.
- Observed failures included the AI not answering questions, interpreting similar inputs inconsistently, and offering limited opportunities for deep discussion, as shown in interaction excerpts and student questionnaire responses.
Generations in Love: An Introspection on Gaming Culture and Communities
This paper examines how players in gaming communities use language, identity performance, and shared activity to create meaning and draw boundaries of membership.
- Participants largely rejected skill mastery as a gatekeeping boundary, finding that expert execution of game mechanics does not reliably separate in-groups from out-groups.
- Most respondents described gaming as primarily social, with online co-operative play the dominant mode (83 percent in the survey) and English widely used as a shared language of play.
- Membership in gaming communities was framed as a cumulation of time, sustained relationships, and community participation rather than competitive achievement.
Tech4Seniors: A Gamified Challenge-Based Learning Experience Integrating Design Thinking and IoT
Tech4Seniors is a four-hour, mission-based learning experience designed to integrate game-based learning, Design Thinking, and Internet of Things (IoT) prototyping.
- Tech4Seniors is a four-hour, mission-based learning experience that combines game-based learning, Design Thinking, and IoT prototyping, tested with 52 engineering students in Mexico organized into 12 teams designing IoT prototypes for senior citizens.
- Students rated every dimension of the activity above 4.0 on a five-point scale, with overall learning satisfaction highest at M = 4.62.
- Expert panel scores were similar for randomly formed teams and for teams formed by student leaders, averaging 86 and 90 out of 100 respectively, suggesting the instructional design produced comparable outcomes regardless of team formation.
A Longitudinal Experiential Learning Design for Negotiation Education Through 谈判 Megagame
This study documents the adaptation of a ten-week undergraduate negotiation course into a longitudinal experiential learning sequence, with the Tánpàn 2.0 megagame serving as its culminating application experience.
- The ten-week negotiation course culminated in the Tánpàn 2.0 megagame, a sequential intercultural negotiation among a Chinese manufacturer, a German exporter, and an Australian commercializer, with formative simulations, role-plays, and debriefings preparing students for it.
- Conceptual test scores rose from a mean of 7.74 to 8.32 out of 9 (about a 6.43 percentage-point descriptive gain) among 19 students, but the increase was not statistically significant under either a paired t-test or a Wilcoxon signed-rank test.
- The authors attribute the non-significant result partly to high initial performance, a pretest given after eight weeks rather than at course start, and a nine-item instrument with restricted range, so the study is descriptive and formative rather than causal.
Who Tells the Better Math Story? Exploring Gen AI in a Digital Algebra Game
This study examines how primary school students aged 9 to 11 evaluate AI-generated versus self-generated stories within a digital algebra game.
- A study of 136 students aged 9 to 11 across two schools found that 58 preferred an AI-generated math story (produced by an embedded GPT-4 system called Algy) over their own, while 64 favored their own.
- Students who chose AI stories valued perceived competence, structural clarity, and reliability, whereas those who preferred their own emphasized ownership, emotional engagement, and cognitive ease.
- Students viewed the AI positively as a helper and teacher yet recognized its flaws, such as confusing content and cultural mismatches.
Lectura Maestra: Gamified Reading Strategy in Undergraduate Business Education
Lectura Maestra is a gamified reading strategy developed at Tecnologico de Monterrey's Campus Laguna School of Business to improve completion and comprehension of mandatory book-chapter readings in undergraduate business courses.
- Lectura Maestra, a gamified reading strategy at Tecnologico de Monterrey's Campus Laguna School of Business, pairs five weekly chapters with Kahoot challenges, an individual leaderboard, nine badge levels, and bonus points tied to the course's highest-weighted component.
- In the principal comparison, the Lectura Maestra cohort (Ideation, n=27) scored a mean of 77.37 on the final exam versus 67.12 for the final-exam-only cohort (Prototyping, n=26), a difference of 10.25 points.
- The difference was statistically significant by Welch's t-test (t(37.73)=2.67, p=0.011) with a Cohen's d of 0.74, and final exam scores counted only correct answers, excluding speed-weighted and bonus points.