Getting the attention

During my ongoing literature review I often discover interesting facts about things I’ve never thought about. Sometimes I can connect these facts with my own observations: The result is mostly a completely new idea why things are as they are. Maybe these ideas are new to you, too. Therefore I’ll share my new science based knowledge with you!

This week: This time, I think about different ways of self-education and how computer games can enhance this process.

Education and learning need a lot of attention and also a lot of concentration. Like with any other message, if the audience does not pay attention to the speaker or the deliverer of the content, then the chances are pretty slim that anyone will take anything away from the facts just being presented. Furthermore, it is not only about the attention itself: the medium being used to deliver the message is important as well.

Reading a long and precise text about a certain fact can be really educating and can offer all the information needed to develop an in-depth understanding of the topic. Unfortunately, reading such a long text can be also quite challenging because the reader needs to stay focussed in order to finish reading the whole text.
A completely different way to present important facts about a certain topic is to generate animations or infographics. These media offer a completely different approach because the message is delivered together with a visual representation helping to understand the presented facts. On the flipside, this approach can not provide all the information needed to develop an in-depth understanding.

However, infographics and animations can also offer a good starting point for further research. After understanding the presented knowledge, consumers can get interested in the topic and can start to learn more about it. This first impulse can also help to stay focussed while reading a complicated article, because the reader then has a pictures in mind and can directly relate the freshly gained information to that picture.

This approach can be also used in computer games. Computer games are ideal to offer a good first impression of a certain topic because they can easily offer a good visual representation. Furthermore, the visual representation can be enhanced with an interactivity which allows the users to discover some facts on their own. Additionally, compared to other animations or infographics, computer games can also offer additional information and allow players to expand their knowledge without switching the medium. Depending on the genre of the game, different computer game mechanics are available to present additional knowledge directly in the game. Role-playing games often offer some additional insights into the narration of the game over virtual books a player can discover and read. Simulation games can implement some kind of a library where players can read additional text about the topic of the game.
Moreover, computer games are designed to make fun. In this case, the players are entertained while they are learning new facts about a certain topic. This combination of entertainment and education might be the most important advantage over the regular approach of reading texts and infographics. While enjoying their time, the players are paying more attention to what is going on around them and their increased involvement in the learning process due to the interactivity of games can help the players to internalize the presented knowledge.

Finally, if the players think that presented knowledge is really interesting, they might start to learn more about this topic to enhance their first understanding developed by playing the game. Additionally, they can then use the game as a test-bed to test out their freshly gained knowledge which would give them in return a direct feedback about their learning outcome. Moreover, a player can stumble upon an interesting fact during the own research. In a best case scenario, the learner then can switch to the game and try out the fact and observe the outcomes. This can be even enhanced if the players can perform better in the game when they do have an in-depth understanding of the topic presented in the game.

As a conclusion, using computer games to present knowledge about a certain topic can enhance the learning outcome of the players. Moreover, when the players are thinking that the game content is interesting, they might start to look up more information about this particular topic. This self-education could be then even enhanced by allowing the players to perform better in the game, when they do have an in-depth knowledge about the mechanics presented in the game.