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The hours of exposure to the digital world is claimed to be profoundly affecting and changing this generation’s learning styles and abilities. To make learning more appealing to the students, teachers have started to use digital games within classroom learning. This paper presents the findings from structured interviews conducted with two classes of primary school students from two different schools in Scotland. The interviews were intended to obtain the students’ background on game playing and their views on learning particularly in using games for learning. The participants were exposed to digital games‐based learning (DGBL) and non‐DGBL learning approaches at school prior to the interviews. The findings revealed that most students spent on average less than 1 hour per day playing digital games and the most popular game platform was the console platform. The overall mean for the attitudes towards learning by playing games, learning by making game, towards DGBL and non‐DGBL approaches and towards school is above 2.00 (Mean: 2.50, SD: 0.10), indicating positive attitudes in all observed areas. No gender difference was observed in all of the attitudes. However, some significant differences were found across some items for different age groups. The findings from this study will contribute to the generation of empirical evidence in the field of digital games‐based learning particularly with regards to its application in primary school education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Games‐based learning is perceived by educationalists as a potentially highly motivational approach for learning and teaching at a supplementary level and is starting to be used more frequently at Primary Education (PE) and Secondary Education (SE) level. Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) has also increased in popularity. CLIL is a bilingual educational approach where an additional language is used for the learning and teaching of both the language and the content and each are interwoven. This paper will discuss the development of a generic electronic Content and Language Integrated Learning (e‐CLIL) Web2.0 games engine developed as part of the EU Comenius e‐CLIL project by the University of the West of Scotland (UWS). The Web2.0 games engine directly answers the need for expanding, very quickly, the amount of content available (in any language) for teachers of CLIL. This paper will present an empirical evaluation of the piloting of the Web2.0 games engine. This paper will present both a student quantitative pilot evaluation consisting of 82 participants and a teacher quantitative pilot evaluation consisting of 18 participants of the e‐CLIL Web2.0 games engine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Games-based learning has developed a reputation with educationalists as it is perceived as a potentially engaging form of supplementary learning that could be utilised to enhance the educational process. Games-based learning has been utilised at all levels of education including primary, secondary and tertiary education. Despite this recognition and utilisation there is still a lack of empirical evidence to support the validity of games-based learning as an approach. This paper will present the findings of a systematic literature review performed from 2000 to 2013 specifically looking at quality empirical studies associated with the application of games-based learning in Primary Education (PE) level. The results presented in this paper are a subset of a larger study categorising studies into: behavioural change, affective and motivational outcomes, perceptual and cognitive skills, knowledge acquisition and content understanding and soft skill outcomes. This paper will specifically focus on the knowledge acquisition and content understanding category where 68 studies were identified; overall however only 29 of those studies made it over the quality assurance threshold. This paper will present a synthesis of these high quality studies associated with knowledge acquisition and content understanding. The studies showed that games-based learning has been used to teach a variety of subjects to children and young people under the age of 14 with mathematics, science, language and social studies being the most popular. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The hours of exposure to the digital world is claimed to be profoundly affecting and changing this generation’s learning styles and abilities. To make learning more appealing to the students, teachers have started to use digital games within classroom learning. This paper presents the findings from structured interviews conducted with two classes of primary school students from two different schools in Scotland. The interviews were intended to obtain the students’ background on game playing and their views on learning particularly in using games for learning. The participants were exposed to digital games‐based learning (DGBL) and non‐DGBL learning approaches at school prior to the interviews. The findings revealed that most students spent on average less than 1 hour per day playing digital games and the most popular game platform was the console platform. The overall mean for the attitudes towards learning by playing games, learning by making game, towards DGBL and non‐DGBL approaches and towards school is above 2.00 (Mean: 2.50, SD: 0.10), indicating positive attitudes in all observed areas. No gender difference was observed in all of the attitudes. However, some significant differences were found across some items for different age groups. The findings from this study will contribute to the generation of empirical evidence in the field of digital games‐based learning particularly with regards to its application in primary school education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Games‐based learning is perceived by educationalists as a potentially highly motivational approach for learning  and teaching at a supplementary level and is starting to be used more frequently at Primary Education (PE) and Secondary  Education (SE) level.  Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) has also increased in popularity.  CLIL is a bilingual  educational approach where an additional language is used for the learning and teaching of both the language and the  content and each are interwoven.  This paper will discuss the development of a generic electronic Content and Language  Integrated Learning (e‐CLIL) Web2.0 games engine developed as part of the EU Comenius e‐CLIL project by the University  of the West of Scotland (UWS). The Web2.0 games engine directly answers the need for expanding, very quickly, the  amount of content available (in any language) for teachers of CLIL. This paper will present an empirical evaluation of the  piloting of the Web2.0 games engine. This paper will present both a student quantitative pilot evaluation consisting of 82  participants and a teacher quantitative pilot evaluation consisting of 18 participants of the e‐CLIL Web2.0 games engine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Games-based learning (GBL) is perceived by some educationalists as a highly motivating form of supplementary learning and is now being used more widely at different levels of education to engage pupils. In Scotland a new approach to education called the Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) has been introduced in schools with a focus on the child at the centre of the learning process to achieve optimum engagement. GBL is one of the experiences and outcomes of the CfE that has gained increasing popularity; however, one of the main difficulties with the approach is that there is a dearth of empirical evidence supporting its validity. This paper presents the combined findings of two surveys carried out in Scotland, one carried out in the Renfrewshire Council area and another in the Glasgow City Council area. The surveys were intended to gauge the current implementation of GBL in primary schools and particularly focused on the use of games, game creation tools and teachers' opinions on the benefits and obstacles of GBL within the CfE. A comparison of the two surveys is performed to ascertain if there are any significant differences in teacher attitudes to GBL between these regions. Overall, the combined result shows that, in general, the implementation of this approach is still limited, despite positive attitudes of teachers towards this approach. The obstacles faced by teachers when using this approach is discussed and suggestions to overcome these are proposed. The findings will contribute to the generation of empirical evidence in the field of GBL by providing important insights into the benefits, motivations, attitudes and obstacles from the teachers' perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Computer games have become a very popular form of entertainment and have had a significant impact on how University students spend their leisure time. More recently educationalists have become optimistic about the potential of computer games to help people learn effectively. If games-based learning is to become a recognised teaching approach then motivations for playing computer games must be better understood. This paper presents the combined analysis of three studies looking at motivations for playing computer games, performed over a four year period from 2005 to 2009. The paper focused on differences of motivations in relation to gender. The study found that challenge was the top rated motivation and recognition the lowest for playing computer games in general. Challenge was also the top rated motivation for playing games in HE, with fantasy and recognition the lowest. Males gave higher ratings than females to all motives, reasons for playing games for learning in HE, apart from recognition and fantasy and attitudes to computer games, although males and females did not differ in believing that playing computer games could be helpful for developing useful skills. [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]