A new EPIC research article has been published! The article, titled “What is “Learning” in Serious Game Jams? A Systematic Literature Review,” co-authored by Maria Gonçalves, Inês Nunes, Pedro Fernandes, and Conceição Costa, was published in the Proceedings of the 18th European Conference on Games Based Learning.
Game jams, events where participants collaboratively create games within a limited time frame, have gained popularity as engaging and educational activities. Numerous studies highlight learning as a significant motivator for participation, positioning game jams at the intersection of pedagogy, design research, and game studies. This article focuses on exploring what conceptualizations of learning can be found in the sources and how that learning process was structured throughout the game jams; specifically, what participants are learning, the methodologies employed, and how the learning was measured. The results show that although some articles use game analysis or questionnaires to measure learning, these results are not analysed or presented in depth. Furthermore, the article points to the fact that serious game jams, explicitly designed to teach something, usually featuring more time consuming, due to the specific nature of an added layer to game jam: a serious theme that needs to be learned by the participants but also reflected in a game for educational purposes. This underscores the potential use of (adapted) game jams to promote learning regarding social issues, culture, or science in an engaging and dynamic way. This article reflects on those processes and the different conceptualisations of learning that can be found in sources that tackle this topic with regards to Serious and Cultural Game Jams.
You can find the full article here: https://papers.academic-conferences.org/index.php/ecgbl/article/view/2673
Reference: Gonçalves, M., Nunes, I., Fernandes, P., & Costa, C. (2024). What is “Learning” in Serious Game Jams? A Systematic Literature Review. In Proceedings of the 18th European Conference on Games Based Learning, 18(1), 304–311. https://doi.org/10.34190/ecgbl.18.1.2673
