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Here We Are, Now Entertain Us! A Comparison of Educational and Non-Educational Board Games
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, , , Michigan State University, United States

Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education International Conference, in Savannah, GA, United States ISBN 978-1-939797-13-1 Publisher: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE), Waynesville, NC USA

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Abstract

One key promise of educational games is that they can tap into learning in a way that is fun and motivating to learners. In this paper, we explore the reality of these claims by examining existing data on 9343 games from BoardGameGeek.com. We compare educational and traditional games based on player ratings and key features of the games, such as average time to play the game, number of players, groupings they belong to, and suggested age. We found educational games to be slightly less enjoyable than traditional games (p<.05). We examine how differences in key features of these two types of games may lead to this observed difference in enjoyability.

Citation

Koehler, M.J., Greenhalgh, S.P. & Boltz, L.O. (2016). Here We Are, Now Entertain Us! A Comparison of Educational and Non-Educational Board Games. In G. Chamblee & L. Langub (Eds.), Proceedings of Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education International Conference (pp. 567-572). Savannah, GA, United States: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE). Retrieved October 4, 2023 from .

© 2016 Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE)

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