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Semi-structured interviews (Study 1) and online surveys (Study 2) were conducted to explore how the shop page symmetry design affected consumers' navigational ease and the page aesthetic appreciation. The findings challenged the key assumption of the Fluency Theory of Aesthetic Pleasure as applied to dynamic environment of social media commerce. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Games based learning (GBL) has a related field that it can draw upon: intelligent tutoring systems (ITS). A common concern in both fields is adaptivity, whereby the system can automatically adapt to the user. In order to support this adaptation, an ITS will generally include a user model and may also have a formal domain model. Work in this area started optimistically some years ago, but seems to have either lost some of that initial enthusiasm or been diverted into other directions. We scan recent ITS literature to help consider why this might be, and suggest how GBL may be the field best placed to take the work forward again. Learner models have long been seen as useful for adaptive learning systems. They include information about the learner which allows the system to adapt the course of learning materials and exercises to the learner's particular characteristics. In order to achieve a good quality of adaptation to the user, a detailed model of the required domain knowledge is typically added. The user and domain models then have to be brought together to lay out a course of exercises for the learner to do, and to track progress as the knowledge is learned. It's an attractive research programme, but recent work has moved to new issues, such as MOOCs. The reasons for that are partly opportunistic and economical, but also suggest a deeper problem with the research programme. It is a costly task to develop a domain model, and a suitable learner model that can take advantage of it. We suggest that GBL is in a good position to push through this cost barrier, because much of the effort is already implicitly involved in the game design process, which typically has to be more rigorously planned out in order to make the game a good one. One might thus expect the next breakthroughs in adaptive learning systems to come from GBL. We further argue that the advantages to research, offered by the ITS framework, are also potentially beneficial to the way we teach the subject of GBL to our students on game development courses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital educational games (DEGs) possess the ability of providing an attractively and essentially motivating learning context. However, an adaptive learning game would increase the probability of a DEG being actually motivating and emotionally appealing. A pedagogical agent‐based environment suggests a new opportunity for computer mediated learning emphasizing virtual social relations between learners and computers. The overall goal of this work is to provide pedagogical agents with social intelligence, so that they can decide when is an appropriate time to interact with the learner, be sensitive to the motivational and emotional state of the learner, and try to develop a positive social relationship with the learner. The study examine the effects of the competency (low vs. high) and interaction type (proactive vs. responsive) of pedagogical agents as learning companions (PALs) on learning, self‐efficacy, and attitudes. Interactions are been analyzed as a series of interaction tactics, where the speaker seeks to address one or more informational, motivational, or social goals, and monitors the listener’s response to ensure that these goals are achieved. This is followed by brief look at Affective Human Agent Interaction to have Existing agent systems typically infer human affect by sensing and reasoning about the state of a game or an outcome related to an action taken by the user within the learning environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Computer programming is a core subject in most Computer science programmes at university level but many students have difficulties with both the understanding of theoretical concepts and with the learning of practical programming skills. Several studies have pointed out that there exist pedagogical and motivational problems resulting in high drop‐out rates and low learning outcomes. On the other hand today’s students have grown up in a digital and internet connected world where playing computer games is a common and appreciated spare time activity. It has been discussed during many years amongst teachers and researchers which important features a programming language should have to support learning and which the appropriate programming paradigms are for introductory programming courses. Less has been discussed and written about modifying the actual course content and use the recognised attraction and catalytic effect of computer games. The aim of this case study is to describe, analyze and discuss the concept of learning to program by game construction. In this case study two course analyses have been combined with a literature review on pedagogy for Game Based Learning (GBL Findings from the literature review show that the idea of students constructing knowledge in their interactions with their environment is not a new one and that games have been used in educational contexts long before the introduction of computers. The idea of Game based learning has support in the constructivist learning theory concept that was introduced theoretically at university level in the 1970s by Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky. Results from the study also indicate that the practical application of the game construction concept has been successful in the two investigated programming courses both when it comes to student motivation and learning outcomes. Furthermore, this game based pedagogy can motivate students not only to develop themselves as future programmers but also to become more innovative and entrepreneurial by improving the quality and performance of the games in order to deploy, promote and sell them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People with intellectual disabilities often experience problems whenever they want to visit large indoor spaces such as shopping centers, hospitals, and cultural centers, as they might be not able to quickly navigate them and find the right place. Interactive message boards, signage systems, helpdesks, and other navigation aids may be useless to them, as they may not be able to read and understand navigation maps, or even communicate with strangers. This article presents a mobile game that trains indoor navigation skills of people with intellectual disabilities. The gameplay is based on user control of the movement of a game character along a route built in the space with several indoor objects. The goal of the game is to complete the route from the entrance to exit with minimal deviations. The indoor space and the objects within the space are represented as 2D or pseudo-3D (isometric) models. The route is rebuilt every time at the beginning of the game, depending on a set of objects which the character wishes to pass by, and is divided into segments between two neighbouring objects. To keep the user's attention while he moves the character, the current section of the route is highlighted and the end of the section is indicated by a bright marker. After the game character reaches the end point of each section, the user is shown a smiling or sad emoticon depending on the success in passing the section. After reaching the end point of the route, the user is shown a list of emoticons matched to each route section. The developed game was integrated with the mobile game for training shopping skills of people with intellectual disabilities previously developed by the authors. For the game, several models of real stores have been developed,, with interior shopping racks. At the beginning of the game, the user creates a shopping list. The list is used to build a route on the store map, which the user must go through to buy all the goods from the list. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multiple Complex Development Disorder (MCDD) is a debilitating but little-known disorder characterized by a dependent style of behaviour and a lack of social adaptation. We present an approach to developing mobile games acceptable by people with MCDD and describe two games in which we implement the suggested approach. The games are designed primarily for the independent use by people with severe mental disorders, so to make the games accessible by such users, they are designed to minimise any uncertainty in gameplay. The first game is aimed at helping people with MCDD to develop the skills of recognizing and distinguishing objects surrounding the person with MCDD in his everyday life. Information about the objects is grouped into categories: each category is represented by a set of objects. For the first version of the game, the categories and objects were selected which people with MCDD constantly deal with in everyday life, such as Clothes, Vegetables, Pets, etc. The gameplay is limited by viewing the categories, category objects and videos showing when, where and how these objects are used in everyday life. The second game is dedicated to the development of speech and communication skills of people with MCDD by using the PECS cards (Picture Exchange Communication System). The game includes two modes: recognition of actions and composing sentences. The application was tested on a group of young adults with MCDD who live in Volgograd Home for disabled people. All the young adults participated in testing with great interest, and almost all of them were able to manage the game without the help (or with minimal help) of the staff of the boarding house. The results of testing showed that the mobile games can really help to train everyday life skills of people with severe mental disorders, and in a way they clearly find enjoyable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Decision fatigue is a psychological effect of willpower becoming weaker after a long period of having to make decisions, as if the ego becomes tired. It can lead to lower performance as well as worse decisions. This experiment aims to test whether the effect might present new problems for serious game design. Because games can motivate players to continue playing for long time periods, it may happen that their willpower eventually weakens. That would lead to careless or incorrect decisions in the later stages, which could defeat the ultimate purpose of a serious game. In this study a simple Twine text adventure game was made to cause players to make many choices in order to sap their willpower and bring about a state of decision fatigue. They are then shown an unsolvable puzzle within the Portal 2 engine and asked to solve it, in order to see how long it takes people to give up or ask for hints. Results indicate that a state of decision fatigue can occur while playing the text adventure game, depending on how many choices the player has to make. In consequence, the performance in the later, second game can drop significantly. It thus appears that designers of serious games might wish to be careful, not to undermine the learning opportunities in the later stages, by making the gameplay too engaging from the start. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is often hoped that gamification will bring new ways to engage students to learn better, and it may be that the benefits would be more significant for younger learners, like school pupils. To gamify an activity is to structure it so that it is more like a game, which might increase motivation and make the activity more pleasant or enjoyable. In some ways, gamification might also improve performance. Most educational activities in schools are still traditional however, because gamification is not quick or easy to do, and teachers need confidence in their gamification skills, and in its benefits. In this study high school pupils were taught a part of their subject, which was information technology, by means of a specially gamified activity. As an experimental control, a similar class of pupils were taught the same material by more traditional methods. All the students sat a test afterwards, which showed that the gamified class had learned the material significantly better. Questionnaires from all the students, about their experiences, opinions, and feelings of their activity (gamified or traditional) indicated that the reason for their improved performance was that they were more motivated by the gamification. While it remains a challenge to gamify education, and it depends on the talent and effort of the teacher, results like this can encourage further interest and development. When GBL researchers explore more ways to do gamification, and begin to build a repertoire of techniques, we shall gain a better idea of what works well, and thus help to bring gamification into the classroom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Virtual and augmented realities (VR and AR) have a rich potential to investigating and experiencing of various fields of knowledge by people of different ages but especially by young people. Serious AR and VR apps and games are a new attractive tool to acquire new knowledge and skills in an engaging way. This article presents a concept of AR games for investigating cultural and historical heritage by high school students in their study of local history. Each game is designed to study a group of cultural heritage sites (historical, architectural, geographical, etc.) located in a limited area of the region and selected as possible places that certain residents of the region may have visited in their time. For each game a certain historical person who actually lived at that time in the region is chosen and his biography and contribution to the development of the region is included in the game content. The route is displayed on the map of the region and the player must follow this route along with the selected historical person. In the places of location of the cultural object, the player must point his (or her) phone or tablet camera on the object in order to start investigating the object. Before he gets the information about this object he is asked whether he knows the historical purpose of the object; and if not he is suggested to search for any characteristic features of the object that could help him to answer the question. For organizing a dialogue with the user an Emotional Dialogue Tree (EDTree) model is used. A mobile game “One day in life of a merchant Vasily Lapshin” is presented, which explores the architectural heritage of the late 19th century of Tsaritsyn (the historical name of Volgograd). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]