Game-Based Learning in and Beyond Classrooms, Viewed from an Educational Equity Perspective

Dear Colleagues,

By game-based learning we mean using games in educational contexts to reach educational objectives (Connolly et al., 2012)—these games could be entertaining games or educational games. While entertaining games are mainly designed for fun, entertainment, and recreation, educational games are designed for educational purposes. In addition, digital games and physical (and board) games are all included. The main goal of game-based learning is learning and behavioral change.

Game-based learning has gained much interest in various educational settings in the last 30 years, but since the COVID-19 pandemic the interest in motivating pupils for and immersing them into learning by game-based learning approaches has reached new levels worldwide. Game-based learning is often presented as a motivation booster, which is seen as a kind of cure for motivation killers and the loss of motivation experienced when learning for or in school. In general, empirical studies and meta-analyses have revealed that game-based learning is linked to a broad range of perceptual, cognitive, behavioral, affective, and motivational effects and outcomes, but they also present a broad range of theories, research questions, designs, methods, and types of games used.

Recently, the focus of game-based learning was also set on educational equity. For example, a European project called EU Fairplay has been running from 2022 to 2024 to explore how digital game-based learning can contribute to educational equity in general and in the digitalization hotspot in particular. Establishing educational equity would mean “removing the predictability of success or failure that currently correlates with any social or cultural factor” (National Equity Project, 2023) in PreK-12 and higher educational systems. From this perspective, game-based learning seems to be highly compatible with the idea of educational equity as enabling all individual learners to develop their talents and achieve their full potential or receiving (at least a minimum amount of) a good quality education (e.g., European Commission/EACEA/Eurydice, 2020).

This Special Issue welcomes in-depth, full-length research papers, systematic reviews, and meta-analyses as well as position papers. We hope to center the focus on game-based learning in classrooms, in schools and beyond, and more explicitly and exemplarily on the following topics:

• How game-based learning could be successfully implemented in classroom learning or learning for school outside classrooms (e.g., the integration of digital games, and boardgames and physical games into classroom learning and teaching);
• What the framework conditions are for the use of game-based learning (e.g., game-based learning readiness and the attitudes towards game-based learning of pupils, teachers, and parents);
• Whether game-based learning can be more effective than classical methods or how methods should be combined (e.g., comparison studies between game-based interventions and competing educational interventions to answer more practical pedagogical research questions);
• What role could be played by teachers to ensure effective game-based classroom learning and how they should act pedagogically;
• How educational games should be designed to create effective game play (e.g., value-added research studies for improving various aspects of game design);
• What educational objectives can be reached by various genres of game-based learning (e.g., student-centered research studies about learners, their characteristics, game play, and effects);
• How classroom learning and teaching can be enriched outside classrooms by game-based learning;
• Whether and how strategies for using game-based learning for classroom learning or learning for school outside classrooms should be considered;
• How game-based learning can be adapted or adaptive to learner features (e.g., personalized game-based learning or artificial intelligence and game-based learning);
• How parents can support game-based learning in the classroom and game-based learning outside of school.

I am sure, dear colleagues, that you yourself can find a great quantity of other relevant aspects that contribute to the overarching theme of “Game-Based Learning in and beyond Classrooms as Viewed from an Educational Equity Perspective”. Finally, I would like to encourage you to explicitly address the relevance of the findings of your work to educational equity.

For orientation, we have also formulated some exclusion criteria:

• Play-based approaches like Lego® Serious Play or classical role-playing as well as gamification approaches.
• Papers dealing exclusively with pre-school or elderly persons.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Prof. Dr. Klaus Dieter Stiller
Guest Editor

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• game-based learning
• serious games
• educational games
• educational games in schools
• entertaining games in schools
• educational equity
• GBL implementation