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There is a good body of literature about digital-game-based language learning (DGBL), but research has mainly focused on students as game players rather than as future educators. This paper reports on a research conducted among 154 teacher candidates at a higher-education institution in Spain regarding the adoption of digital games in education. It analyzes the participants' knowledge of and attitudes toward digital games in foreign language learning. Quantitative and qualitative data were gathered through a pre/post-test, digital game presentations, and student blog posts. The research comprised five stages associated with critical thinking skills (definition, selection, demonstration, discussion, and reflection), including a game learning module. In the first two stages, preservice teachers completed the module activities and selected different games aimed at teaching English to children in preschool and elementary education. In the last two, they illustrated, discussed, and evaluated the digital games in class following a rubric and reflected on their perception in blog posts. In this four-week research based on a mixed method and convenience sampling, quantitative and qualitative data were gathered through a pre- and post-test survey about student perceptions toward the use of video game in the classroom, class discussion, and blog posts. Statistical data analysis unveiled gender-based differences related to gameplay frequency and genre preferences. The Wilcoxon signed-rank test was used as a nonparametric statistical hypothesis test to compare the two sets of scores resulting from the same participants, and it showed a significant difference (p[less than or equal to]0.05) after the treatment in two of the five dimensions in the survey about teacher candidates' attitudes toward game usage in education, namely, usefulness (U) and preference for video games (PVG). Research findings revealed preservice teachers' positive attitudes but lack of practical knowledge about the use of digital games in foreign-language learning.

The performing arts are currently in a critical situation worldwide. Various reports warn that the lack of audience. If we focus on dance, and especially folk dances, the situation is worse. In various countries and continents, folk dances are slowly disappearing. In Spain, we find evidence of the downward trend in terms of the number of attendees to performances of Spanish dance -an art form that is highly valued throughout the world. In a generation marked by technological advancements, the only way for classic performing arts to reach young audiences - or digital natives – is to speak the same language they use with new technologies. This paper presents a study in collaboration with the Spanish National Dance Company, carried out with 877 students (aged from 9 to 12) from 12 different schools in the community of Madrid, Spain. We designed a two-phase experiment. In the first phase, we separated the students into 3 groups: students who played a videogame called “Dancing a Treasure,” those who received a workshop from professional dancers, and a control group. In the second phase that took place two weeks later, the participants attended to a real show of Spanish dance, and we studied how the previous educational approaches affected to the students increase of interest after the show. The experiment demonstrated that the videogame was, at least, as effective in increment interest about dance in younger generations as a workshop taught by expert dance professionals. Thus, in terms of scalability, the videogame is a better option because it can be applied with the same results to larger groups with no additional cost. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a good body of literature about digital-game-based language learning (DGBL), but research has mainly focused on students as game players rather than as future educators. This paper reports on a research conducted among 154 teacher candidates at a higher-education institution in Spain regarding the adoption of digital games in education. It analyzes the participants' knowledge of and attitudes toward digital games in foreign language learning. Quantitative and qualitative data were gathered through a pre/post-test, digital game presentations, and student blog posts. The research comprised five stages associated with critical thinking skills (definition, selection, demonstration, discussion, and reflection), including a game learning module. In the first two stages, preservice teachers completed the module activities and selected different games aimed at teaching English to children in preschool and elementary education. In the last two, they illustrated, discussed, and evaluated the digital games in class following a rubric and reflected on their perception in blog posts. In this four-week research based on a mixed method and convenience sampling, quantitative and qualitative data were gathered through a pre- and post-test survey about student perceptions toward the use of video game in the classroom, class discussion, and blog posts. Statistical data analysis unveiled gender-based differences related to gameplay frequency and genre preferences. The Wilcoxon signed-rank test was used as a nonparametric statistical hypothesis test to compare the two sets of scores resulting from the same participants, and it showed a significant difference (p ≤ 0.05) after the treatment in two of the five dimensions in the survey about teacher candidates' attitudes toward game usage in education, namely, usefulness (U) and preference for video games (PVG). Research findings revealed preservice teachers' positive attitudes but lack of practical knowledge about the use of digital games in foreign-language learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of the study is to describe the world scientific production on gamification in the Scopus and Web of Science databases between the months of January 2020 and March 2022. We worked with a universe consisting of 754 documents from the database Web of Science and 1443 from Scopus. The results indicate that, in terms of the number of authors, Scopus has 1,336 and Web of Science, 2,223. The rate of collaboration between authors is slightly higher in Web of Science (3.18) compared to 3.05 in Scopus. Regarding the author with the highest production on the subject, Juho Hamari stood out, while the Lecture notes in computer science magazines in Scopus and the Sustainability magazine in WoS stood out as the media with the highest production of articles on gamification; On the other hand, Spain was the main country producing scientific evidence, and the type of scientific production that stood out was the original articles. The growth of scientific production on gamification is corroborated and further growth is forecast for the coming years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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