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This book describes research outcomes on domain-specific serious games. The first part of the book focuses on the design and major characteristics of actual (mainly math-related) serious games. The second part of the book presents recent empirical studies on these games, exploring topics such as the effectiveness of serious games for learning and increasing motivation and the influence of learners'domain-specific and game competencies. The integration of serious games into the curriculum and subsequent performance and motivation outcomes are also presented.

Order affects the results you get: Different orders of presenting material can lead to qualitatively and quantitatively different learning outcomes. These differences occur in both natural and artificial learning systems. In Order to Learn shows how order effects are crucial in human learning, instructional design, machine learning, and both symbolic and connectionist cognitive models. Each chapter explains a different aspect of how the order in which material is presented can strongly influence what is learned by humans and theoretical models of learning in a variety of domains. In addition to data, models are provided that predict and describe order effects and analyze how and when they will occur. The introductory and concluding chapters compile suggestions for improving learning through better sequences of learning materials, including how to take advantage of order effects that encourage learning and how to avoid order effects that discourage learning. Each chapter also highlights questions that may inspire further research. Taken together, these chapters show how order effects in different areas can and do inform each other. In Order to Learn will be of interest to researchers and students in cognitive science, education, machine learning.