The Borderline Between Serious Games and

SimulationsPresentation by: İbrahim Cereci

Authors: Sinem Guney, Nergiz Ercil Cagiltay, Emre Tuner, Ibrahim Cereci

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Game Based Environments

Game Based Environments(GBE) recognized in

Health

Military

Education

Training

GBE provides

Reliable measures

Better guidance

Feedback

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Simulation and Games

Simulation and games makes several learning self-directed learning possible.Some examples:

Game Based Learning(GBL)

Problem Based Learning(PBL)

Games and Simulations create active learning alternatives [1]

Lighten mood

Facilitate creativity

Encourage participation

Collaboration (in Multiplayer case)

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Games and Simulation in Surgical Education

Surgical education aims to teach surgeons necessary skills [2]

Improvements for motor skills performance to control endoscope/laparoscope

Eye-hand coordination

Motor and spatial awareness

all can be given by games and simulation

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Simulation

A device or exercise which under a specific test condition, enables the participant to reproduce or represent the phenomena that is likely to occur in actual performance [3]

Technique of imitating the behavior of some situation or process of areas such as economic, military or mechanical by means of a suitably anologous situation or apparatus environment [4]

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Game

Games can be defined as outcomes-oriented activities that proceed according to a set of rules, often involve focused decision making [5]

Game is also defined as “any contest (play) among adversaries (players) operating under constraints (rules) for an objective (winning, victory or pay-off).” [6]

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Serious Games

Formally defined as an interactive computer application, with or without significant hardware component that has a challenging goal, is fun to play and engaging, incorporates some scoring mechanism, and supplies the user with skills, knowledge or attitudes useful in reality [7]

Today popularly, serious games are computer games designed not for pure entertainment, but for some serious purposes such as training, scientific investigation, or advertising [8]

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Serious Games

Present an ideal playground to engage players in simulated complex decision-making processes like those required in medical training and therapy [9]

Implemented in several different areas:

digital games for computers

game consoles

smart phones or other electronic devices

directed at or associated with improvement of competence of professionals in medicine

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Borderline

In order to better understand the borderline in between the games and simulations that are developed for a specific training or educational purpose, one need to understand the features of these environments.

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Feature: Repetition

Repetition is possible providing try-and-error type of learning as well as unlimited, safer and in most cases time and place independent experiences

games are not isolated experiences as the player knows that s/he can always start over and the knowledge and interpretation of simulations in games requires repetition [10]

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Feature: Challenge

Challenge is an important game design element [11]

In order to improve the challenge level in the game design games usually combine chance, risk, reward, loss, fantasy, curiosity and competitive environments in parallel with the game story

there are several studies showing that competition is generally considered an effective technique to motivate people to learn and to excel [12]

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Feature: Rules

Rules in the simulation and game environments can be categorized in two main groups:

The system rules that are required for creating a simulation environment and the game rules.

Game rules are the ones which defines how to behave in the game environment in order to win the game

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Feature: Game Score

An essential parameter for serious games to facilitate engagement as well as to provide measures about the players’ performance during the game play

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Feature: User Control and Decision Making

Control is the degree to which an individual feels empowered to create changes in the game world [13]

Control is another important component of a game which refers to the system's openness to manipulation by the player

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Feature: Enjoyment-Fun-Excitement-Engagement

Game Interfaces can be useful in the making of the activity enjoyable that they provide imaginative and fun experience by offering interesting and engaging challenges.

Game offers fun experiences in realistic virtual settings with game technologies.

Game is being entertaining, competitive and includes low stress and low cost

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Feature: Goals-Objectives

Games usually include a challenging goal, incorporates some concept of scoring and impacts to the user a skill, knowledge or attitude that can be applied to the real world.

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Discussions and Conclusions

In order to better understand the borderline between serious games and simulation

The definitions of these technologies are analyzed

The main features of these systems are listed.

Figure shows that the main aim of games and simulations that are developed for the educational and training purposed is to help the learner to better reach the instructional objectives and outcomes for the specific domain

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Figure 1. The Borderline between Serious Games and Simulations

Discussions and Conclusions

the simulations and games provide a repetitive try-and error type of learning

The user control in these environments is high which improved the learner’s decision making process

By collecting detailed data about the learners’ progress during their performance in those systems a better and detailed feedback mechanism can also be provided

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Discussions and Conclusions

As seen in Figure 1, the borderline in between is the enjoyment, fun, excitement and engagement that is provided by games

Above the features of the simulators, games create more fun.

The fun in the games usually created through creating a challenge by using several different approaches

Game rules

Game score.

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Discussions and Conclusions

As a conclusion, in this study we draw the borderline between serious games and simulation as the fun and excitement feature of the games.

We believe that, the serious games provide fun by using some tools such as game score, game rules and challenging game design strategies

We hypothesize that by improving the engagement level of the learner a well designed game is more effective on supporting the learners to better reach the educational objectives than the simulators

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Acknowledgement

This study is conducted for improving the scenario designs of the educational materials developed for neurosurgery education project purposes which is supported by The Scientific and Technological Research Council Of Turkey (Tübitak 1001, Project No: 112K287, ECE Project). We would like to thank the support of TÜBİTAK 1001 program for realizing this study.

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References

1. Khan,M.K,. Telmesani, A., Alkhotani,A. Elzouki,A., Edrees,B., Alsulimani, M.H. (2011). Comparison of jeopardy game format versus traditional lecture format as a teaching methodology in medical education, Saudi Med J 2011; Vol. 32 (11) 1172-1176

2. Manitsaris, A., Dimitropoulos, K., & Mavridis, I. A (2006). Hypermedia virtual environment for education in medicine, Journal of Infromation Technology Impact, 6(2), 61-72

3. Krummel , T.M. John A. and Marian T. (1998). Surgical Simulation and Virtual Reality: The Coming Revolution, Annals of Surgery Vol:28, N0:5, 635-637 1998 Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.

4. Arbib, Michael A. "From grasp to language: embodied concepts and the challenge of abstraction." Journal of Physiology-Paris 102.1 (2008): 4-20

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References

5. Kerfoot, B.P., Baker, H. (2012). An online Spaced-Education Game to Teach and Assess Residnts: A Multi-Institutional Prospective Trial, 2012 by the American College of Surgeons Published by Elsevier Inc

6. Smith L., Mann S. (2002). Playing the Game: A Model for Gameness in Interactive Game Based Learning‟, In proceedings of the 15th annual NACCQ, 2002, pp 397- 402

7. Graafland, M., J. M. Schraagen, and M. P. Schijven. "Systematic review of serious games for medical education and surgical skills training." British journal of surgery 99.10 (2012): 1322-1330

8. S. Blackman, Serious games...and less! SIGGRAPH Comput. Graph, 2005. Vol.39, 12-16

9. Umanski, D., Kosters, W., Verbeek, F., & Schiller, N. (2008). Integrating Computer Games in Speech Therapy for Children who Stutter. In: Proceedings First Workshop Child, Computer and Interaction, Chania (Crete, Greece), October 2008

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References

10. Frasca, Gonzalo. "Simulation versus narrative." The video game theory reader (2003): 221-235

11. Malone, T. (1981). Toward a theory of intrinsically motivating instruction. Cognitive Science: A Multidisciplinary Journal, 54 , 333{369. doi. 10.1016/S0364-0213(81)80017-1

12. Malone, T. W. and Lepper, M. R., (1987). Making Learning fun: a taxonomy of intrinsic motivations for learning, Aptitude, learning, and instruction, 3, Cognitive and Affective Process Analyses. Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ

13. Pavlas, Davin, et al. "Investigating the attributes in serious games that contribute to learning." Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting. Vol. 53. No. 27. SAGE Publications, 2009

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