APPLYING GAMIFICATION IN LEARNING PROCESSES: GOOD PRACTICES AND RECOMMENDATIONS ABOUT HOW SERIOUS GAMES CAN ENHANCE STUDENTS' LEARNING SKILLS

Abstract

This paper is a quantitative literary review about serious games (SGs). It investigates two main questions: Are SGs used by teachers in planning their teaching and learning processes? What are the strengths and weaknesses of the implementation of SGs in an educational process and environment? We investigated about 200 papers from different countries and selected 96 of them after reading the abstracts. We didn’t choose a specific school grade or subject because the aim wasn’t a qualitative analysis about the specific outcomes that the implementation of SGs can provide to a single subject or scientific aspect. The main purpose of the paper is the evaluation of the usefulness and suitability of SGs in various educational environments. The most predictable positive features emerging from the review are the positive effects of SGs on students’ engagement in learning and learning outcomes and the positive feedbacks from teachers. The negative ones are the difficulty of using a SG outside of its unique educational environments, the resistance of some teachers, and the absence of SGs in less spoken languages. In the conclusions there is a reflection about the role Universities can have in the development of SGs and in creating a network among all the actors involved in this process.