Assessment in Game-Based Learning

Game-based assessment refers to an area of research and development designed to use video games specifically, and interactive digital media more broadly, as vehicles for measuring the acquisition of skills, knowledge, and dispositions. Games themselves can be used as assessments, and games can also be integrated into learning environments with other players, teachers, locations, and communities, to provide evidence of learning. This entry reviews how researchers have thought about game-based assessment, explores the research on how data embedded in the game environment can be used to assess learning, and describes how researchers can study game ecologies by combining in-game data and data on play communities to provide a well-rounded account of what players learn from gaming.