From Harold F. O’Neila*, Richard Wainessa and Eva L. Bakerb. The Curriculum Journal Vol. 16, No. 4, December 2005, pp. 455 – 474
This article focuses on learning outcomes in the context of video games.
Learning outcomes are viewed from two theoretical frameworks:
- Kirkpatrick’s levels of evaluation
- CRESST model of learning
Several thousand articles pertaining to games have been published in the past 15 years,
however, only 19 studies are reviewed in this article as they met their standards for empirical research (i.e. either qualitative or quantitative data available).
Some difficulties about considering the research outcomes are:
- the educational benefits of games are mixed, and it is hypothesized that the positive findings can be attributed to instructional design and not to games per se
- many studies claiming positive outcomes appear to be making unsupported claims for the media
- most of the studies use a single measure to examine outcomes
