Backlund, P., & Hendrix, M. (2013). Educational games - Are they worth the effort? A literature survey of the effectiveness of serious games.

Backlund, P., & Hendrix, M. (2013). Educational games - Are they worth the effort? A literature survey of the effectiveness of serious games. 2013 5th International Conference on Games and Virtual Worlds for Serious Applications (VS-GAMES).
https://search-proquest-com.unco.idm.oclc.org/docview/304838683?accountid=12832
doi:10.1109/vs-games.2013.6624226

This article discusses the educational effectiveness of game based education, as well as what methods need to go into development of educational and serious games. It defines the differences between Serious games and edutaining games, as well as which aspects of education lend themselves best to game-based learning, such as Mathematics and language learning.

This paper is focused on educational games, and was carried out using the frame established by the EduGameLab. The study was limited to games used in formal school settings, and only includes papers  published in scientific journals. Their survey of the research covered only 2002- first half of 2012, and focused on studies that empirically evaluated the learning effect of games in some way. Their keywords were Video Game, Computer game, Education, Training, Evaluation, Empirical evaluation, and Effectiveness and Game based learning/training.

This paper is a very in depth examination of everything I’m examining, and is very focused. It excludes the military, business, and vocational training from its pool of research, which allows for a better overview of formalized education. I believe this paper will be a good source to bounce off of as it is extremely thorough, and includes a clear methodology, which will be effective in my own research.

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