Enhancing digital learning

June 2024

Aalborg University

Master's student

Can an online game about Vikings battling against Anglo-Saxons spark an interest in history?

Throughout this research, my thesis partner and I aimed to collect data from high school students who find history as a subject boring. We analysed the data to notice patterns of the main problems while using knowledge from relevant literature to back up our arguments for why these problems occur and how to solve them. During the process, in this case, we would generate ideas and create prototypes in the design phase to showcase our solutions and enhance motivation, engagement, and learnability in the subject of history through a digital game.

The main page of Tectonicus back in January 2024

The problem area

In October 2023, a teacher named Claus from Ørestad Gymnasium came by the office of the game company where I was an intern for a brainstorming meeting. He wanted to incorporate GAMUCATEX in an upcoming student case from January 2024. This student case was for the 3rd year high school students in the subject Informatics level-B. Their task will be to solve problems for GAMUCATEX regarding, for instance, social media and branding.

He teaches informatics and history and states that many students find history boring. I saw this as an interesting problem to investigate and became curious about whether the students find history boring and, if so, why. Two months later, a fellow student from my Master's courses asked to join my project, and together, we worked to uncover how a history lesson could be improved by utilizing digital gameplay.

I commuciated and facilited with many different stakeholders

Since my thesis partner joined my initial idea about a project in collaboration with GAMUCATEX,

the company I was hired at and Ørestad Gymnasium, where I was a part of the brainstorming meeting, I was the one that had to coordinate between all stakeholders. One example was when I gathered all the stakeholders at Ørestad to present a slideshow I made where I introduced the game, the Informatic B-level case and this thesis project to the high school students.

Case presention day at Ørestad Gymnasium

Data collection methods

Ethnography

Usability tests

Interviews

Focus group

Methodology

Case study

Design-based research

Thematic analysis

We conducted a thematic analysis of our qualitative data collected from the usability tests with the students, the semi-structured interview with the teacher, and the focus groups with students and GAMUCATEX employees. The analysis aimed to discuss the key themes apparent from the participants' experiences and perspectives. The analysis helped us develop design principles to use in the design phase.

Findings

The Main menu does not present the historical theme and card game genre

Students did not notice the three different factions or understood the banners

The ‘History Power’ card ability was not explained clearly

Visual or audio explanation would be more motivating than text

No level overview and, therefore, no reason to continue playing after one match

Design soluton based on insights and interventions

The design solution presented below is based on an intervention we had with the students when shown our first version of our prototype, meaning what you will see here is the second and improved iteration or the 2nd. LAB phase within design-based research.

Based on the data analysed, we designed the Main menu to look like this. We decided to place warriors from each faction on the page showcasing the battle theme and also cards to communicate to users that this is a card game. The title and buttons have been moved to the centre since we want the users to notice those elements first before anything else. Also, the background picture still shows a natural environment, but it is more realistic as our data found that the big and tall mountains seemed fictional and extravagant, as if the game is set in a fantasy world.

In the other versions of Tectonicus, the introduction text of the battle did not clearly show where it took place geographically due to zooming in on the map. We chose to use that same map but zoomed out and placed the names of the countries since some students could not tell which countries were shown on the map. And instead of having a scroll-down list of deck categories named, for instance, “Hold Them Off!” we designed the game battles to be in chronological order timeline-wise, meaning that a user can first, for instance, play The Battle of Ellendun” that took place in 825 before playing “The Battle of Fontenoy” which happened later in the year 841.

In our prototype, the user can choose a warlord to show more clearly that the game is not just based on Vikings and what each banner represents. Depending on the battle or what we call “Level,” the options differ for whom the user can pick. We blurred out the Frank warlord to spark curiosity and motivation to continue playing the game after one match.

When conducting focused group interviews, one of your game designers said something smart, and that was: “You know the gamer is only gonna get a few main messages from our game if we do it right”.This is one of the reasons why we wanted to present a quick, fun fact for the users. Something small for them to recall, which might also spark an interest in knowing more.

Most students did not recall what the battle was about after playing the Tectonicus, and some of them mentioned that they would prefer not to read the text. We then suggest a short video showing the text, but also images fitting for the battle scenario and audio. The users can then listen to the introduction text, as we predict their attention span will remain longer.

The students never played the tutorial, and our research focus was not on how inituative the rules of Tectonicus are but on the historical elements, one being the card ability named “History Power”. None of the 12 students understood what the top left number on each card illustrated. So, we implemented a quick tutorial only about the three numbers on each card.

After the gameplay, the student is presented with the final feedback, which consists of information about the real historical ending of the battle. They get the option to play the video or to go to the next level. The historical ending of the battle video is supposed to give the player the final information before going to another level. The reason we chose to make it optional in this case, and not as in the introduction page, is because we believed that it was important to have the users the option to continue playing, so we don’t want them to feel forced to watch something and just quit the game. This is to hopefully nudge the user to continue playing level 2.

Reflections and what to improve

Avoid giving too much information about the game before testing.
Ask "Why" more frequently to make the students elaborate on their answers.
We could have been better at hiding interpersonal triggers.
We also underestimated the time it would take to test the game on students.
Plug the gaming laptop in to charge before usability tests.

Thanks to the enthusiastic It- and History teacher Claus Witfelt for making this case a possibility

Quote

"Helena successfully led a collaborative project with Ørestad Gymnasium, which was a study on how to make historical elements in our game more engaging for students, demonstrating an ability to bridge academic research with practical applications"

- Andreas J. - Founder of GAMUCATEX.