[Education Sciences] Special Issue "Whatever Happened to Digital Games-based Learning?"

Fuli Cao Announcement
Location
Switzerland
Subject Fields
Childhood and Education, Digital Humanities, Educational Technology, Teaching and Learning

Dear colleagues,

It is now eighteen years since the publication of Marc Prensky’s seminal book ‘Digital Game-based Learning’ (2001) in which he argued persuasively that computer games will soon be how everyone learns. However, despite extensive research efforts (dating from as early as 1980) and its potential to provide significant and possibly unique opportunities for learning (Gee, 2004a), DGBL remains relatively uncommon in classrooms (Takeuchi and Vaala, 2014). This is why this Special Issue of Educational Science asks the question: “Whatever Happened to Digital Games-based Learning?”

Despite all the research, advocacy and hype over more than thirty-five years, DGBL has yet to achieve Prensky’s claim—and, for some, using digital games to support formal learning remains controversial. Nevertheless, there are many examples of well-designed DGBL that have been shown capable of supporting some aspects of learning in some contexts. However, if DGBL is to realise its demonstrable potential, a clearer understanding of digital games, learning and classroom practices in all their complexity is necessary. For example, researchers and developers need to consider combining core approaches to DGBL (games designed to support structured practice and games designed to support knowledge construction), rather than prioritising one to the exclusion of the other. They need to draw on insights from the learning sciences, by working with learning scientists, and move beyond simplistic understandings of what it actually means to learn and what conditions best support learning (for example, recognising the importance of retrieval practice and the impact of uncertain rewards on learning). And, if DGBL is to be seen by teachers as a useful complement to their usual teaching practices, DGBL designers and researchers also need to consider and accommodate the Big G (the affinity space and the classroom context), in addition to the small g of educational games. Only once all that is in place, might DGBL achieve its tantalising promise.

For this Special Issue of Educational Science, we invite empirical and theoretical contributions that address our overarching question, “Whatever Happened to Digital Games-based Learning?”, and that aim to raise DGBL research to a more rigorous level. In other words, we are inviting contributions that go beyond reporting small-scale studies of DGBL, to consider what may be thought of as DGBL’s big questions.

Example topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • evidence for the effectiveness of DGBL (e.g., what counts as evidence;
  • meta-analyses and systematic reviews;
  • DGBL evaluation best practices (what do we need to evaluate, why and how?);
  • DGBL methodological challenges (including: research, development, and implementation);
  • the ethics of DGBL;
  • big data and DGBL;
  • Artificial Intelligence and DGBL;
  • the learning sciences and DGBL;
  • DGBL and different learning contexts (e.g., inside and outside of classrooms);
  • the future of DGBL;
  • genres of DGBL (e.g., mobile, desktop, immersive, collaborative...);
  • demythologising DGBL (e.g., games may impact motivation and engagement, but how do we know that leads to learning?);
  • addressing violence, misogyny, and racism in DGBL;
  • what is an effective balance in DGBL between play and learning?
  • orchestrating DGBL within the constraints of typical classrooms;
  • teachers’ professional development for DGBL;
  • the small g game (the game as software) vs the Big G Game (the social system of interactions that players engage in around the game) (Gee, 2011).

NB For this call, DGBL includes digital-games based learning, digital educational games, digital learning games, digital serious games, and gamification.)

Dr. Wayne Holmes
Guest Editor

Contact Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All papers will be peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Education Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access quarterly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 350 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

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