Serious games in higher distance education

Abstract

Games have been socially entrenched throughout history as a form of entertainment. Current rapidly changing technological advances have permitted an increasingly prominent means of utilizing these entertainment sources in an instructional capacity for educational purposes. As a result, serious games focus on engaging learners in activities which are not developed solely for enjoyment purposes. Goal oriented pursuits based in either an authentic or fictitious scenario can be designed to improve motor and cognitive abilities or learner knowledge (de Freitas & Jarvis, 2006; Lamb et al., 2018; Protopsaltis et al., 2011). Serious games promote intentional, active, and mobile learning that can be successfully used as a supplemental educational tool to facilitate a situated understanding of specific content (Admiral et al., 2011; Gee, 2005). This paper is a brief overview of game-based learning, or serious games, as an innovative instructional strategy in higher distance education.