Serious Games on Human Behavior: Impact on Learning Styles, Engagement, and Motivation

Abstract

Capturing learners’ attention in the classroom has become challenging. Learners have different learning styles influencing their attitude towards learning processes and contents. Serious Games (SG) are rich and promising learning tools that have been introduced to support a new form of gamified learning, mainly to enhance students’ engagement and motivation. Such games facilitate learning because they generate enthusiasm and are part of a learning-by-doing experience. This study analyzes the role of learning styles and motivation on learner cognitive engagement and performance when using SG. Answers from 188 users of a serious game conducted in KEDGE Business School were analyzed. The findings show that learning goals have a strong positive effect on intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. The paper reveals that learning styles have a significant impact upon both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. The latter is also influenced by learning styles as is cognitive engagement. Finally, the future research directions are presented.