Games in High School Settings

What are learning games? First, it is necessary to define what games are in general. Games are analog or digital forms of play with conflict or competition spurring play and cognition with reality-based rules constraining win-loss scenarios and systemic feedback. The purpose of this entry is to describe the effect of games on learners in both formal and informal high school settings. It is important to not only view impacts as those on achievement. In addition, it is important to examine students’ attitudes, their levels of engagement during the game (what Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls flow), as well as how games are used when found to be significant at impacting learners.

Much of the research on the use of learning games has focused on examining games as ...