Educational systems can benefit from Virtual Reality’s (VR) ability to support experiential learning. In particular, VR based games, especially role-playing serious games (RPGs), can promote learning through the simulation of various educational scenarios. This thesis proposes an immersive VR-RPG to educate players about the behavior of honeybees. The player adopts the role of a honeybee and experiences a virtual world mimicking the real one from the honeybee’s perspective. Unlike most studies in educational VR, we assess the impact of immersion on knowledge gain by testing the players’ knowledge on the subject before, immediately after, and one week following the use of the system. We also compare the proposed system with both a conventional and a desktop VR-RPG approach. The results indicate that students significantly gained knowledge in all methods compared to the pre-test. We found that the immersion level for both tested VR-RPGs did not have a significant effect on learning. However, the study showed an improvement in knowledge retention for the desktop VR-RPG users compared to those of the conventional method. Moreover, the results revealed that users of the immersive and desktop VR-RPGs were more motivated and engaged compared to those of the conventional method.

Inactivity and sedentary behavioural patterns among children contribute greatly to a wide range of diseases including obesity, cancer, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes. It is also associated with other important health effects like mental health issues, anxiety, and depression. In order to reduce these trends, we need to focus on the highest contributing factor, which is lack of physical activity in children’s daily lives. 'Exergames' are believed to be a very good solution in promoting physical activity in children. Such games encourage children to engage in physical activity for long periods of time while enjoying their gaming experience. The purpose of this thesis is to provide means of directing child behaviour in a healthy direction by using gaming enhancements that encourage physical exertion. We believe that the combination of both exercising and learning modalities in an attractive gaming environment could be more beneficial for the child's well-being. In order to achieve this, we present an adaptive exergaming system, the "ExerLearn Bike", which combines physical, gaming, and educational features. The main idea of the system is to have children learn about new objects, new language, practice their math skills, and improve their cognitive ability through enticing games and effective exercise. Three games have been incorporated to provide children with various educational benefits. The system has personalized features that allow guardians to customize the learning content, skill level, and required physical activity to meet their child’s needs. A stationary bike is used as a gaming controller to encourage children to undertake daily aerobic exercise. A modular design approach was adopted so that it is possible to use any stationary bicycle as an input interface by simply attaching a number of devices to it. This thesis provides detailed information about the design requirements, the design model, the proposed system and its related hardware components, the design and development of the gaming software, and the qualitative and quantitative evaluation of the system’s performance.

Persuasive attitude changing games are a growing genre and a powerful tool when wanting to reach out and affect the opinion and attitude of larger groups in society. But how well do persuasive games actually work and can they be improved further? This article studies persuasive computer games and comes up with the proposal of using the Multiple Identification Theory, an established model for attitude change as a foundation for designing persuasive games. By analyzing every step of the MIT and translating it into the field of digital games, key concepts have been identified and proposed as guidelines for future development of persuasive games. In addition an analysis of existing persuasive games have been made, with the aim to study how well they meet the criteria of the MIT and determinate whether they could have improved by using it or not.

Inactivity and sedentary behavioural patterns among children contribute greatly to a wide range of diseases including obesity, cancer, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes. It is also associated with other important health effects like mental health issues, anxiety, and depression. In order to reduce these trends, we need to focus on the highest contributing factor, which is lack of physical activity in children’s daily lives. 'Exergames' are believed to be a very good solution in promoting physical activity in children. Such games encourage children to engage in physical activity for long periods of time while enjoying their gaming experience. The purpose of this thesis is to provide means of directing child behaviour in a healthy direction by using gaming enhancements that encourage physical exertion. We believe that the combination of both exercising and learning modalities in an attractive gaming environment could be more beneficial for the child's well-being. In order to achieve this, we present an adaptive exergaming system, the "ExerLearn Bike", which combines physical, gaming, and educational features. The main idea of the system is to have children learn about new objects, new language, practice their math skills, and improve their cognitive ability through enticing games and effective exercise. Three games have been incorporated to provide children with various educational benefits. The system has personalized features that allow guardians to customize the learning content, skill level, and required physical activity to meet their child’s needs. A stationary bike is used as a gaming controller to encourage children to undertake daily aerobic exercise. A modular design approach was adopted so that it is possible to use any stationary bicycle as an input interface by simply attaching a number of devices to it. This thesis provides detailed information about the design requirements, the design model, the proposed system and its related hardware components, the design and development of the gaming software, and the qualitative and quantitative evaluation of the system’s performance.

Inactivity and sedentary behavioural patterns among children contribute greatly to a wide range of diseases including obesity, cancer, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes. It is also associated with other important health effects like mental health issues, anxiety, and depression. In order to reduce these trends, we need to focus on the highest contributing factor, which is lack of physical activity in children’s daily lives. 'Exergames' are believed to be a very good solution in promoting physical activity in children. Such games encourage children to engage in physical activity for long periods of time while enjoying their gaming experience. The purpose of this thesis is to provide means of directing child behaviour in a healthy direction by using gaming enhancements that encourage physical exertion. We believe that the combination of both exercising and learning modalities in an attractive gaming environment could be more beneficial for the child's well-being. In order to achieve this, we present an adaptive exergaming system, the "ExerLearn Bike", which combines physical, gaming, and educational features. The main idea of the system is to have children learn about new objects, new language, practice their math skills, and improve their cognitive ability through enticing games and effective exercise. Three games have been incorporated to provide children with various educational benefits. The system has personalized features that allow guardians to customize the learning content, skill level, and required physical activity to meet their child’s needs. A stationary bike is used as a gaming controller to encourage children to undertake daily aerobic exercise. A modular design approach was adopted so that it is possible to use any stationary bicycle as an input interface by simply attaching a number of devices to it. This thesis provides detailed information about the design requirements, the design model, the proposed system and its related hardware components, the design and development of the gaming software, and the qualitative and quantitative evaluation of the system’s performance.

This thesis explores whether a social game shows indications of being more effective to raise awareness of cultural differences than an open discussion exercise. Within the field of Serious Games there are studies exploring the area. Among them some studies aim to train the cultural understanding of military personnel or are business relationship oriented, while others try to motivate immigrant to interact with local population or convey situation which may lead to culture shock.To conduct the experiment critical incidents were developed using a model where individualistic and collectivistic cultures are compared in social and work related situations. Participants, students from Swedish for immigrants, were divided into two groups. One group was playing the game and the other was having an open discussion exercise. Results show after the session and three weeks later indications of the game being more effective raising awareness of cultural differences.

Det här examensarbetet utforskar spel som redskap för stresshantering och avslappning. Jag undersöker vilka stressreducerande moment från verkligheten som skulle kunna passa i ett spel, hur de kan implementeras, och vilken effekt de kan tänkas ha i virtuell form. För att avgöra vilka moment som kunde vara lämpliga gjorde jag en litteraturstudie och en pilotundersökning. I mitt praktiska arbete utforskade jag hur dessa kan implementeras i en virtuell miljö. Jag skrev en spelidé och gjorde en samling skisser som jag skapade en interaktiv presentation av. 16 testpersoner fick ta del av presentationen och därefter utifrån öppna frågor berätta om vad de tyckte om konceptet och dess framförande. De fick också svara på hur de trodde att de skulle uppleva det färdiga spelet om det existerat. Undersökningen visade att samtliga av mina testpersoner trodde sig kunna få ut liknande effekt från miljöerna och aktiviteterna i spelet som från verklighetens motsvarigheter.

Detta arbete har som syfte att undersöka om emotionell inlärning har någon effekt på faktainlärning i ett informativt dataspel om Röda Korsets vattendistribution i DR Kongo. Det föreslås i arbetet att dataspel kan dra nytta av emotionella företeelser såsom fotografier, ansiktsuttryck och dylikt för att förstärka och ge en bättre bestående faktainlärning. En spelprototyp om Röda Korsets vattendistribution produceras i två versioner, en med emotionella och en med neutrala företeelser och testas sedan på varsin grupp med 10 andraringselever i varje. Eleverna får besvara ett frågeformulär direkt efter spelandet och en gång till två veckor senare för att undersöka hur hög inlärningen varit. Inget slutgiltigt resultat kunde utvinnas ur undersökningen, då skillnaderna mellan de två grupperna av elever samt storleken på grupperna (10) var för små för att ge några statistiskt signifikanta resultat. Dock hävdas det att skillnaden till den emotionella versionens fördel, ändå ger en indikation som motiverar en större studie för att slutgiltigt fastställa ett resultat.

<p>Det här examensarbetet utforskar spel som redskap för stresshantering och avslappning. Jag undersöker vilka stressreducerande moment från verkligheten som skulle kunna passa i ett spel, hur de kan implementeras, och vilken effekt de kan tänkas ha i virtuell form. För att avgöra vilka moment som kunde vara lämpliga gjorde jag en litteraturstudie och en pilotundersökning. I mitt praktiska arbete utforskade jag hur dessa kan implementeras i en virtuell miljö. Jag skrev en spelidé och gjorde en samling skisser som jag skapade en interaktiv presentation av. 16 testpersoner fick ta del av presentationen och därefter utifrån öppna frågor berätta om vad de tyckte om konceptet och dess framförande. De fick också svara på hur de trodde att de skulle uppleva det färdiga spelet om det existerat. Undersökningen visade att samtliga av mina testpersoner trodde sig kunna få ut liknande effekt från miljöerna och aktiviteterna i spelet som från verklighetens motsvarigheter.</p>

<p>Detta arbete har som syfte att undersöka om emotionell inlärning har någon effekt på faktainlärning i ett informativt dataspel om Röda Korsets vattendistribution i DR Kongo.</p><p>Det föreslås i arbetet att dataspel kan dra nytta av emotionella företeelser såsom fotografier, ansiktsuttryck och dylikt för att förstärka och ge en bättre bestående faktainlärning.</p><p>En spelprototyp om Röda Korsets vattendistribution produceras i två versioner, en med emotionella och en med neutrala företeelser och testas sedan på varsin grupp med 10 andraringselever i varje. Eleverna får besvara ett frågeformulär direkt efter spelandet och en gång till två veckor senare för att undersöka hur hög inlärningen varit.</p><p>Inget slutgiltigt resultat kunde utvinnas ur undersökningen, då skillnaderna mellan de två grupperna av elever samt storleken på grupperna (10) var för små för att ge några statistiskt signifikanta resultat. Dock hävdas det att skillnaden till den emotionella versionens fördel, ändå ger en indikation som motiverar en större studie för att slutgiltigt fastställa ett resultat.</p>