Learning by doing: Intrinsic Integration directs attention to increase learning in games

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Educational games have long been seen as having great potential, but evidence for their effectiveness is mixed, suggesting deficiencies in our theoretical understanding of learning in games and associated design principles. The principle of “Intrinsic integration” of learning content with game mechanics (Hapgood and Ainsworth, 2011) increases learning in educational games, but the theoretical mechanisms behind the principle are unclear, leading to implementation issues. In response, we performed a pre-registered study (n=210) to test possible motivational, cognitive load or attentional mechanisms for moderating learning at an abstract learning task within an educational game similar to Pacman. Learning was higher in the intrinsically integrated version with no significant effects of motivation or cognitive load leading to the conclusion that intrinsic integration increased learning via an attentional mechanism where players only pay attention to features needed for the game task and ignore task-irrelevant information. We discuss theoretical implications for game learning as well as insights for designers of educational games.
Original languageEnglish
Article number240
JournalProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction
Volume6
Early online date10 Aug 2022
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 29 Oct 2022
EventCHI Play 2022 - Bremen, Germany
Duration: 2 Nov 20225 Nov 2022

Bibliographical note

© 2022 Association for Computing Machinery. This is an author-produced version of the published paper. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher’s self-archiving policy. Further copying may not be permitted; contact the publisher for details

Keywords

  • Intrinsic Integration
  • educational game
  • attention
  • learning
  • motivation
  • cognitive load

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