Learning on Electrical Circuits While Playing ‘E&E Electrical Endeavours' - Design Research on a Serious Game Optimizing for Conceptual Understanding

In a two year design research project, a serious game was developed in a close collaboration of educational researchers, game-designers and secondary school teachers. In a first round, the game was used in classroom employing an open-inquiry format. It was found that the game had a strong impact on the student’s conceptual development but that it provoked the construction of misconceptions. The game was then adapted and partially redesigned on the basis of the evaluation outcomes and additional expert-review. Also the way of using the game in classroom was redesigned and written down in a teachers’ guide. In a second round this pedagogical approach to using the game in classroom alternating open inquiry type gaming-episodes with guided reflection and internalisation episodes, was used. Again a strong impact on students’ conceptual understanding of electrical circuits was found. Significantly less misconceptions occurred. The results indicate that the close collaboration of school teachers, educational experts and game designers was fruitful for improving the serious game and its use in school practice. Moreover it became clear that serious games have a potential to strongly contribute to students’ conceptual understanding, in particular by the mental model implicitly represented in the game ́s layout and structure.