Since the mid-1980s, various educational games have been developed, and their popularity has implications for the use of games in the classroom. Although research over many years has shown games to be effective in enhancing motivation and improving learner performance, studies that connect specific elements of games and learner motivation are lacking. This report is a literature review of relevant articles on motivation and attributes in game-based learning, including empirical studies and theoretical articles from 2009 to present. Based on the attributes presented by Wilson et al. (2009), the game environments in these studies are reviewed, with a focus on recent studies and trends related to game-based learning. This review also presents an examination of how the recent studies conducted their experiments in order to investigate game attributes and motivation. The relationship between the attributes and learner motivation is discussed. Because of the current lack of research on the relationship between attributes and learner motivation in game-based learning, the results of this literature review can provide insight into the potential use of game attributes. / text

No description available.

No abstract available. / Thesis (M.Mus.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2005.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1971. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.SC.) - Carleton University, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 54-55). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

There is a significant and previously unidentified ethics problem with many e-games; many of them are designed in such a way that they encourage and train game players to follow a narrow and dangerous model of decision making. It is argued that extending this model of decision making beyond an e-game's virtual reality has significant negative societal consequences. Unfortunately most e-game courses focus primarily on game engine design and other technical issues. E-game curricula and e-game designers need to follow standards which recognize this ethical concern and recognize that their work is not independent from the societal impacts of the technology they develop. Modifying design approaches can reduce the problems caused by the ethical decision making model.

Sedentary lifestyles have bad health implications and are common amongst office workers. Therefore, exergames has risen to attention to assist with these issues and is a suitable alternative for those that find regular exercise boring or are seeking to complement regular exercise with short breaks to keep the blood flowing during office hours. Thus, the exergame Cart has been developed to assist in a less sedentary lifestyle with a 2-minute game to play during breaks. In this paper a discussion will be held about how an exergame can be created and will be evaluated by how the game encourages movement and what correlation the movement has compared to the score. As the score is the primary indicator of player performance and is the incentive for the player to keep better themselves. The findings show promising results indicating that the game does encourage movement and has a solid correlation to score, however not in a linear fashion.

Development of a game in the form of software for game-based learning poses significant technical challenges for educators, researchers, game designers, and software engineers. The game development consists of a set of complex processes requiring multi-faceted knowledge in multiple disciplines such as digital graphic design, education, gaming, instructional design, modeling and simulation, psychology, software engineering, visual arts, and the learning subject area. Planning and managing such a complex multidisciplinary development project require unifying methodologies for development and software quality evaluation and should not be performed in an ad hoc manner. This dissertation presents such methodologies named: GAMED (diGital educAtional gaMe dEvelopment methoDology) and IDEALLY (dIgital eDucational gamE softwAre quaLity evaLuation methodologY). GAMED consists of a body of methods, rules, and postulates and is embedded within a digital educational game life cycle. The life cycle describes a framework for organization of the phases, processes, work products, quality assurance activities, and project management activities required to develop, use, maintain, and evolve a digital educational game from birth to retirement. GAMED provides a modular structured approach for overcoming the development complexity and guides the developers throughout the entire life cycle. IDEALLY provides a hierarchy of 111 indicators consisting of 21 branch and 90 leaf indicators in the form of an acyclic graph for the measurement and evaluation of digital educational game software quality. We developed the GAMED and IDEALLY methodologies based on the experiences and knowledge we have gained in creating and publishing four digital educational games that run on the iOS (iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch) mobile devices: CandyFactory, CandySpan, CandyDepot, and CandyBot. The two methodologies provide a quality-centered structured approach for development of digital educational games and are essential for accomplishing demanding goals of game-based learning. Moreover, classifications provided in the literature are inadequate for the game designers, engineers and practitioners. To that end, we present a taxonomy of games that focuses on the characterization of games. / Ph. D. / The game development consists of a set of complex processes requiring knowledge in many disciplines such as digital graphic design, education, gaming, instructional design, modeling and simulation, psychology, software engineering, visual arts, and the learning subject area. Planning and managing such projects require unifying methodologies for development and software quality evaluation. This dissertation presents such methodologies named: GAMED (diGital educAtional gaMe dEvelopment methoDology) and IDEALLY (dIgital eDucational gamE softwAre quaLity evaLuation methodologY). GAMED consists of a body of methods, rules, and postulates and is embedded within a digital educational game life cycle. It provides a modular structured approach for overcoming the development complexity and guides the developers throughout the entire life cycle. IDEALLY provides a hierarchy of 111 indicators consisting of 21 branches and 90 leaf indicators in the form of a graph, in which there is no cycle or closed path, for the measurement and evaluation of digital educational game software quality. Moreover, classifications provided in the literature are poorly defined for the game designers, engineers, and practitioners. To that end, we present a taxonomy of games that focuses on the characterization of games.

No description available.

My dissertation examines competition, cooperation, and efficiency in three market settings in which a population of economic agents interact, either directly with each other in pairwise matches, directly with firms, or with firms via a platform. In one chapter I consider a population of customers who have different valuations for a good sold by competing merchants, as well as varying preferences over the merchant from which to purchase the good and the payment form with which to make the purchase, and examine what the effects might be if a merchant placed an additional surcharge on transactions completed with a payment form that is more costly for the merchant. The cost for the merchant can vary dramatically depending on the payment form used. For example, a credit card transaction is generally more expensive for the merchant than a debit card transaction, even if the transaction is completed using the same technology and is processed over the same network (e.g., a MasterCard signature debit transaction and a MasterCard credit card transaction). Historically, with limited exceptions, merchants have been prohibited, both by law and by the contract permitting the acceptance of that network's cards, from charging customers different prices for transactions completed using different payment cards, despite the different costs these transactions impose on them. Recent concessions made by several major payment networks in response to legal challenges raises the possibility that this paradigm might change in the future. This chapter examines what the effects might be if merchants were permitted to charge customers different prices based on the payment form and whether these effects depend on differences between the merchants, such as differences in the marginal cost of providing the good. In another chapter, I consider a population of individuals made up of more-patient and less-patient types who interact directly with each other in a repeated prisoner's dilemma embedded in a search model. A player is matched anonymously with another player to play a prisoner's dilemma game repeatedly until the match is ended, either exogenously or endogenously by one of the players, at which point each player may receive another random match. I first determine when it is feasible to achieve the best outcome in which all players cooperate. When it is not possible to achieve full cooperation, I examine how welfare can be improved over the outcome in which no players cooperate. When conditions are such that less-patient players choose not to cooperate, I first examine how separation by action within a single market can increase welfare for all players over the uncooperative equilibrium, with more-patient players choosing to cooperate in hopes of forming a cooperative relationship, despite the risk of being matched with a less-patient player who chooses not to cooperate. I then examine how full separation of the more- and less-patient players, made possible by introduction of a second market, can increase the welfare of the more-patient players without harming the less-patient players. In a third chapter, customers choose to purchase a good from one of several competing firms in a setting in which network congestion and firms' investment in capacity plays an important role in firm costs and product quality, e.g., the wireless industry. Wireless carriers (e.g., Verizon) compete not only on the price of their service but also on its quality. The quality of a carrier's service is determined in part by the quantity of customers it serves and by investment in capacity with which to serve them. While the primary effect of a carrier increasing its capacity is an increase in that carrier's service quality, there are also externality effects on other wireless carriers. For example, if carrier A increases its capacity, thereby increasing its service quality, and causes some customers to leave a competing carrier B, the service quality experienced by customers who remain with carrier B will increase as a result of the decreased congestion in carrier B's network. This chapter examines the interplay between these effects alongside traditional price competition in this oligopoly setting. / text