Multi-Level Game Learning Analytics for Serious Games

Abstract

Serious games are usually used or deployed in an educational setting as an isolated or individual activity, disconnected from other curricular activities. However, to really increase the adoption of serious games in different educational scenarios, the combination and integration of games into the educational flow should be simplified. We envision Serious Games as new type of educational activity that can be combined as parts of other games (e.g. minigames integrated in larger games), integrated into other online activities, or even mixed with both game and non-game activities. In addition, if we want to make the most from serious games, a learning analytics system must be in place to harvest and analyze interactions, providing metrics and insights to instructors regarding the gameplay sessions. Moreover, if a course-level learning analytics strategy is designed, it must be aligned with the game learning analytics. This approach requires communication between games and educational activities used during the educational experience. From a game learning analytics standpoint, gaining insights from these integrated experiences introduces new requirements within potentially complex multi-level or hierarchical activities. Moreover, the analysis required to generate these metrics should be both efficient and provide insight in an understandable way and for different stakeholders. This paper describes an approach to multilevel game learning analytics from the perspectives of data model, implementation architecture, and result visualization in teacher-oriented dashboards