The Implementation of Team Based Assessment In Serious Games

• Authors: Liz Boyle;Fiona Hancock;Matt Seeney;Laz Allen
• Venue: VS-GAMES '09 Proceedings of the 2009 Conference in Games and Virtual Worlds for Serious Applications
• Year: 2009

Abstract — Serious games differ from commercial games with their focus on learning and training and their use of pedagogies. Serious games have several components that can help to make them successful – learning theories, high-quality gaming experiences, offering collaboration and competition as well as the opportunity for assessment. Team assessment has a potentially major role to play in serious games, allowing individuals to evaluate the role they play in a team, what team they fit into best and how their teams operate as a whole.The current study set out to examine the potential of the Infiniteams Island game (TPLD) as a learning tool, using a pre-post test method. As Reference [1] proposed, the user would potentially “over estimate” their abilities pre game, with a more accurate response to their skills post game, having a greater understanding of what was being examined and being able to see the skills in action. Using two hundred and four psychology students from the University of the West of Scotland (UWS), each gave answers to a pre-questionnaire, played the Infiniteams Island game and completed a post-game questionnaire.This study has led the way for future research in the area of team assessment in serious games, such as this one. Having found that team role assessments such as the Belbin Team-Role Inventory cannot be automatic assessments implemented into open-ended free choice games, this study established a basis not only for future use of team assessment, but also demonstrated the capabilities for such serious games to cause players to evaluate their team skills more accurately, but indirectly. Future implementation of team assessment, whether it is team roles or team strengths, should be applied externally, in parallel to any game. Keywords