An assessment of the relationship between player performance and the attractiveness of educational games
Abstract
The use of experiments and practical activities are fundamental for fixing concepts worked in some disciplines. However, such practices may not be viable in the academic environment. The use of simulators and computer games becomes an alternative for these situations. One challenge is to achieve a compromise between gameplay/entertainment and the process of mobilizing theoretical concepts. A common approach is to evaluate the score obtained, but it is somewhat limited when it comes to games with various decisions. An example is the analysis of the strategy used during the game. Using data provenance in educational games seems to be an alternative. In this article, we present an approach based on provenance analysis to evaluate plays performed by students and group them according to the strategy used, reflecting the mobilization of the concepts covered in the game. Based on these groups, an analysis is made of the attractiveness reported by the students. An experimental evaluation with high school students was carried out on top of the Control Harvest game. The results point to a correlation between perceived attractiveness and performance measured with provenance.
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