Gamifying life skills education

Playing video games is a common pastime for many young people and educators  have been keen to understand how games can be used for teaching and learning  because games can offer immediate feedback and provide a safe space for  students to try again after failing.

But there are gaps in understanding  what youths learn when playing video games outside school.

A qualitative case study led by Asst Prof Victor Lim and Dr Toh Weimin, education researchers at the National Institute of Education, NTU’s teacher training institute, looked into this by  exploring the way two male university students in their early 20s played two  commercial video games – one played The Walking Dead Season 1, while the  other played The Last Of Us.

The researchers found that the  students displayed skills useful in school and the workplace. Both students showed  critical thinking skills, such as coming up with step-by-step plans to solve  challenges in-game, as well as empathy by understanding the perspectives of  different playable game characters.

One student also demonstrated  multimodal literacy – he was able to combine and process different cues in  the game, like verbal, visual and action cues, to reach an objective.

Based on the findings, the researchers  say teachers can use games to design learning activities for students and help  them learn from their gameplay, such as prompting them to reflect and discuss  their experiences.

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The study “Learning in digital play: a dual case study of video gamers’ independent play” was published in  Research and Practice in Technology Enhanced Learning (2022). DOI:  10.1186/s41039-022-00182-2.

The article appeared first in NTU's research & innovation magazine Pushing Frontiers (issue #21, December 2022).