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The importance of health and social services is increasing as European society grows older and unemployment and relocation across Europe increases. This growing demand for services is creating unprecedented pressures on health and social care systems. Despite differences in political approaches and institutional frameworks, health and social services across Europe face similar challenges in adjusting to demographic ageing, societal change, rising expectations and consumerism, changing employment and family patterns, evolving technological opportunities and funding issues. A key part of the sector deals with vulnerable people. Education and training plays a pivotal role in developing those who work with vulnerable people and, more generally, the social services sector. In many parts of Europe, the sector has a strong emphasis on learning and assessing skills for job roles in real practice environments (“practice learning”). In some qualifications, practice learning can be almost 40% of the total learning time. There are also on-going demands for practice learning with new qualified professionals and professionals as part of CPD. There are clear logistical challenges in arranging practice opportunities where trainees are able to learn the core skills of the job and receive high quality support, supervision and assessment of their practice from suitably qualified mentors/practice assessors. Furthermore, finding sufficient numbers of such placements has been a challenge for the last 30 years. However, there are also other challenges; e.g. risks associated with work-based learning and the safety and well-being of service users in giving trainees access to their lives. This paper discusses the development of a 3D simulated practice learning environment that focuses on supporting people who work with young children. The paper then presents the findings from a large-scale teacher training programme for the game that was run across various European countries with 120 participants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC) is the main regulatory body responsible for registering people who work in social services and is responsible for regulating their education and training. In Scotland there are currently 191, 000 social service workers who work with a variety of different people in a variety of different settings ranging from care home services for adults to early year settings such as nurseries and out of care clubs. Games-based Learning has developed a reputation with educationalists for being a potential form of supplementary learning and has been applied in a number of different subject areas. The current state of computer games technology allows the creation of games beyond that of 2D games or web-based eLearning games for increased engagement and immersion. It is therefore considered to be beneficial to use current computer games technology to create a realistic, 3D simulated practice environment for social and health care training. This paper will introduce a generic simulated practice environment developed in Unity for childhood practice training. The paper will describe the preliminary development of the games-based learning environment and discuss the implemented prototype. The paper presents an analysis of an expert evaluation that has been performed on this prototype and discusses future developmental directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Games-based Learning (GBL) is developing a reputation with some educationalists as a useful supplementary approach for teaching and learning. Two important issues for GBL application developers and educationalists are how the learning is actually assessed within a GBL environment and how assessment is integrated into a GBL application. This paper presents the preliminary results of a systematic literature review on assessment integration in GBL and highlights the state of the literature in this area by outlining important papers to act as a guide for educationalists tackling this important issue. This paper defines assessment and discusses formative and summative assessment and embedded and external assessment, but is primarily interested in integrating assessment into games-based learning applications. A discussion of traditional assessment approaches and assessment approaches in GBL are presented. Finally the paper presents the preliminary findings of the literature review and proposes a model/framework for educationalists to incorporate assessment into a GBL application. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Games-based Learning (GBL) is developing a reputation with some educationalists as a useful supplementary approach for teaching and learning. Two important issues for GBL application developers and educationalists are how the learning is actually assessed within a GBL environment and how assessment is integrated into a GBL application. This paper presents the preliminary results of a systematic literature review on assessment integration in GBL and highlights the state of the literature in this area by outlining important papers to act as a guide for educationalists tackling this important issue. This paper defines assessment and discusses formative and summative assessment and embedded and external assessment, but is primarily interested in integrating assessment into games-based learning applications. A discussion of traditional assessment approaches and assessment approaches in GBL are presented. Finally the paper presents the preliminary findings of the literature review and proposes a model/framework for educationalists to incorporate assessment into a GBL application [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past forty years computer games have played an increasingly important part in the way that university and college students spend their leisure time and have gradually replaced traditional leisure activities. It is therefore very important to understand learner motivations for playing computer games and playing computer games in tertiary education contexts as the field of games-based learning has a dearth of empirical evidence supporting the validity of the approach. It seems an obvious assumption that computing students would tend to play computer games quite significantly. This study will examine the motivations of computing students for playing computer games and playing computer games in an educational context at tertiary education level. The study will look at computing students in Further Education (FE) and Higher Education (HE) and will perform a comparison to assess if these motivations are similar or dissimilar based on Malone and Lepper's 1987 framework or intrinsic motivation. The study will contribute a comparison of the same kind of student at different levels of tertiary education and different levels of the Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework (SCQF). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Computer games have become a highly popular form of entertainment and have had a large impact on how University students spend their leisure time. Due to their highly motivating properties computer games have come to the attention of educationalists who wish to exploit these highly desirable properties for educational purposes. Several studies have been performed looking at motivations for playing computer games in a general context and in a Higher Education (HE) context. These studies did not focus on the differences in motivations between online and offline game players. Equally the studies did not look at the differences in motivations of people who prefer single-player games and people who prefer multi-player games. If games-based learning is to become a recognised teaching approach then such motivations for playing computer games must be better understood. This paper presents the combined analysis of two studies at HE level, performed over a two year period from 2007 to 2009. The paper focuses, in particular, on differences of motivations in relation to singleplayer/ multi-player preference and online/offline game participation. The study produces a set of important motivations to be taken into consideration for each player preference type (single-player or multi-player) and each player participation type (online or offline) based on a large piece of empirical research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Games-based Learning (GBL) has a dearth of empirical evidence supporting the approach. One of the primary reasons for this is the lack of evaluation frameworks to generate sufficient ideas to guide and focus games-based learning evaluations. This paper will present a refined evaluation framework based on two extensive literature reviews. One review performed to identify evaluation frameworks and empirical evaluation evidence in 2008 and another in 2009 to identify research on learning value and methods of measuring resultant outcomes and impacts of computer games. This paper will provide a brief description of existing evaluation frameworks and will then discuss specific refined categories of a previously developed evaluation framework to specifically evaluate games-based learning in terms of learner/instructor perceptions, learner/instructor preferences and learner/instructor motivations. The paper will provide a list of guidelines for evaluating gamesbased learning and will provide detailed measurements in terms of perceptions, preferences and motivations. Finally we will conclude with a discussion of future research directions with regards to further refinement and verification of the evaluation framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While there are some teachers who are dubious about the benefits of gaming in education, language teachers make great use of simulation/gaming methodologies and there are many supporting textbooks. While many of the simulations/games used are non-computer based, during recent years the computer game has become an important development in popular culture. During the same period there has been an appreciation that computer games can play a significant role in education. In this paper, we explore the use of one particular type of computer game called an Alternate Reality Game (ARG), a form of interactive narrative, often involving multiple media and game elements. We have developed an ARG to motivate secondary school students to learn a modern foreign language and have piloted this game across Europe in 2009. This paper presents a framework for evaluating games-based learning and provides both a quantitative and qualitative analysis of student performance in the pilot using this framework. The paper reflects on this analysis and provides directions for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Computer games are exceptionally popular and play an increasingly important role in the lives of children and adults. This popularity has captured the attention of educationalists interested to ascertain if the highly engaging features of computer games can be used to help people learn effectively. To properly develop computer games for learning it is important to have an appreciation of what motivates people to play computer games. This paper will present the results of a survey of students' motivations for playing computer games at Higher Education (HE) level and their views of what features of computer games may be useful for learning. The survey was performed at the University of the West of Scotland in March 2009. As well as presenting the results of the 2009 survey, the paper will draw comparisons on two identical previous studies performed in 2005 and 2007. The study will assess whether the game playing habits, motivations for playing computer games, motivations for playing computer games in a HE setting, attitudes and perceptions of students are consistent over a four year period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A highly important part of software engineering education is requirements collection and analysis which is one of the initial stages of the Database Application Lifecycle and arguably the most important stage of the Software Development Lifecycle. No other conceptual work is as difficult to rectify at a later stage or as damaging to the overall system if performed incorrectly. As software engineering is a field with a reputation for producing graduates that are inappropriately prepared for applying their skills in real life software engineering scenarios, it suggests that traditional educational techniques such as role-play, live-through case studies and paper-based case studies are insufficient preparation and that other techniques are required. To attempt to combat this problem we have developed a games-based learning application to teach requirements collection and analysis at tertiary education level as games-based learning is seen as a highly motivating, engaging form of media and is a rapidly expanding field. This paper will describe the evaluation of the requirements collection and analysis game particularly from a pedagogical perspective. The game will be compared to traditional methods of software engineering education using a pre-test/post-test, control group/experimental group design to assess if the game can act as a suitable supplement to traditional techniques and asses if it can potentially overcome any shortcomings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A preface to the book "Proceedings of the European Conference on Games Based Learning" is presented.