A Proposal for an Immersive Scavenger Hunt-Based Serious Game in Higher Education

Abstract

Contribution: A successful activity based on the scavenger hunt (SH) game is presented here. Although “serious game” in education now seems synonymous with videogame, the effectiveness of hands-on traditional games to increase student performance that, besides, they also like is defended and proved. The proposal is not focused, as is usual, on a single aspect of the educational environment, but on integrating behavioral and affective aspects into the learning process. Background: The literature analysis shows the predominance of serious games based on videogames in education, perhaps due to the lack of objective evidence concerning the influence of traditional game alternatives, such as SHs, on students’ attitude/learning. This objective evidence is addressed with a proposal to motivate and integrate the students, making them more participative and thus positively affect their learning. Intended Outcomes: The activity increases motivation (behavioral outcome) and socialization (affective outcome), boosting learning (competence outcome); besides, students like the activity. Application Design: The necessity for a different instructional strategy came from the lack of commitment by the students in the first year of Computer Science Engineering. So a game (they are entertaining and powerful tools to increase motivation) that takes the students outside their normal working environment (classroom and laboratory) was designed. The study follows a cross sectional design with experimental and control sets randomly created, and sizes of 106 and 98 students, respectively. Findings: Highly satisfactory and statistically significant results were achieved: their attitude in class and personal study was more active (motivation), new relationships were created (socialization), they obtained better marks (learning) and enjoyed the activity (user experience), even though it was nondigital.