Integrating a Learning Analytics Dashboard in an Online Educational Game

Abstract

The goal of educational games is to allow players to learn unconsciously while playing. The more a player plays an educational game, the more their learning and their skills can increase. Just like in other games, players in educational games may encounter situations where they feel like they cannot make further progress like passing a level or completing a quest. If players are stuck in an educational game, then they may choose to quit playing the game, which also means that they quit learning. Especially if players quit early, the effect of the educational game will be limited and not last for too long. Therefore, providing players with information on how to improve their performance, such as when and how to play the game, which parts or skill improvement is needed to overcome a challenge and go further in the game, can help to encourage them to play the game more often and continuously. This chapter discusses how the research team integrated a learning analytics dashboard into an educational game so that the players can see their game play performance and habits, and find clues and strategies to improve their in-game performance. The proposed dashboard provides players with a variety of information that will allow them to see how their performance and skills change over time, what their weakness and strengths are and much more. This chapter talks about the design of learning analytics dashboards for educational games and explains the use of the proposed dashboard to help players improve their in-game performance through use cases with 3-month simulated gameplay data.