Editorial.

Digital games and learning

A) Institute for Educational Technology, National Research Council, Genova, Italy,

* corresponding author

HOW TO CITE Dagnino, F., Passarelli, M., Perrotta, C., & Persico, D. (2019). Editorial. Digital games and
learning. Italian Journal of Educational Technology, 27(2), 87-90. doi: 10.17471/2499-4324/1128

The strict relationship between play and learning has been extensively investigated by well-known educa-
tional psychologists like Piaget and Bruner. Nonetheless, if play is commonplace in early-years and primary
education in our schools, the same cannot be said of secondary and higher education, let alone adult learn-
ing. While it is true that most of the research into learning through play focuses on childhood education,
there is no reason why learning, for older students, should not be enjoyable and, where possible, fun.
Since the beginning of the ‘80s, with the ever increasing spread and technological innovation of videogames,
researchers have been investigating questions concerning the key features that make computer games so
captivating and engaging. Some have gone on to explore ways these features might be harnessed for mak-
ing learning engaging and motivating like gameplay. Thomas Malone (1980), a pioneer in this field, mostly
focused on the motivating power of games, while James Paul Gee and Mark Prensky advocated the power
of digital games for learning by arguing that good videogames are not only engaging, they «incorporate
a whole set of fundamentally sound learning principles, principles that can be used in other settings, for
example in teaching science in schools» (Gee, 2003, p.20). Some, like Prensky (2006), believe videogames
even have the power to prepare young people for fast-changing life in the 21st century.
The claims from such visionary authors have been critiqued as being utopian, overly enthusiastic about the
transformative potentials of videogames, and out of touch with the complexities that emerge when games
are brought into educational settings (Buckingham, 2013). Nonetheless, these visions paved the way for
two decades of intense research and experimentation into how to harness the power of digital games for
educational purposes.
In line with this research, the use of digital games for learning is now increasingly being taken up in formal
education, especially schools, but also in higher education and professional training. Indeed so much so that
a number of new games-related fields have emerged. One such is “serious games”, that is games designed
and used for purposes other than entertainment (Ratan & Ritterfeld, 2009). Another is “gamification”, i.e.
the application of game-design elements, such as game mechanics, outside of a gaming context (Deterding,
Sicart, Nacke, O’Hara, & Dixon, 2011). Another still is “game making”, a constructionist approach focused
on the idea of providing students with the opportunity to design and implement their own (digital) games
rather than ’simply’ playing them; this is a knowledge-building approach based on the collaborative pro-
duction of an artefact: the game.

87
Francesca Dagnino, Marcello Passarelli, Carlo Perrotta and Donatella Persico

Digital games can be powerful, highly interactive and engaging tools for learning, offering immersion in
virtual worlds with affordances sometimes similar and sometimes utterly different from the real world. In
these virtual worlds, students can practice their skills or learn new ones; some of these may be related to
disciplinary content, while others are transversal, like collaboration, competition, problem solving, critical
thinking, etc. Games’ affordances for learning can be employed effectively in formal learning contexts,
provided that the teacher orchestrates their use within a coherent and pedagogically informed educational
design. However, learning through gameplay can also take place when people play entertainment videogames,
without an explicit learning intent on the part of the designer or the player (Persico, Passarelli, Pozzi, Earp, Dag-
nino, & Manganello, 2019).
The landscape covered by this special issue includes all of the above scenarios, without however shying
away from the possible drawbacks connected to gameplay in both formal and informal contexts, and it is
therefore very broad. In fact, the relationship between digital games and learning encompasses not only a
large variety of contexts, but also an equally large range of game types, learning outcomes, approaches and
disciplines, many of which are represented in the papers selected for this issue. The digital game types con-
sidered vary from computer-based games to mobile apps, and from serious games to purely entertainment
games. The described approaches are not limited to the use of games for learning or entertainment: although
game making and gamification are not, strictly-speaking, “educational uses of games”, they are covered
here because they represent important strands of digital game-based learning research. Indeed, gamification
may succeed in fostering engagement in learning tasks and improving learning effectiveness where other
approaches fail. Game making, instead, can promote active participation and student centeredness through
learner creation of cultural artefacts potentially leading to the activation of transversal skills and also acqui-
sition of subject area competences (Earp, Dagnino, & Caponetto, 2016).
The learning outcomes considered in the papers selected for this special issue are also very diverse, high-
lighting how games have clear potential for fostering the achievement of different types of learning objec-
tives. Digital games, in fact, can be employed to foster the development of both disciplinary competence
and 21st Century Skills such as communication, collaboration, problem solving, critical thinking, creativ-
ity, self-regulation or media literacy. Additionally, some narrative-driven games can be used to encourage
reflection or discussion on complex topics, from philosophical questions to ethical and psychological is-
sues, such as reflection on death, attitudes towards sexual, cultural and religious diversity, and thus help to
foster cultural and personal development.
This special issue aims to increase the body of knowledge and evidence concerning the learning potential of
videogames and gamification, as well as the problems associated with educational uses of games (Persico,
Passarelli, Dagnino, Manganello, Earp, & Pozzi, 2019). The selection of papers presented here has been
informed by this overarching aim. At the same time, we hope that educators planning to employ games in
their classes will find that they provide inspiring examples of educational uses of games. Since designing
appropriate and pedagogically sound game-based learning interventions is a difficult endeavour, we do
hope that the following articles will contribute to dissipate the fog that often envelops design principles for
Game-Based Learning.
The first research paper, by Freina and Bottino, provides an example of entertainment games used for
learning in primary school. In this study, an experimental group of students underwent a period of training
of their visuospatial skills via digital gameplay in an immersive virtual reality game, while a control group
followed the traditional math curriculum. The study is based on the hypothesis that training visuospatial
skills has a positive impact on students’ maths results. Indeed, the maths skills of the experimental group
improved significantly more than those of the control group, providing evidence for the initial hypothesis.
The main take away of the study is that the maths skills of primary school children can benefit from the

88
 Italian Journal of Educational Technology / Volume 27 / Issue 2 / 2019

training of students’ visuospatial skills and that such training can be done through immersive virtual reality
games.
In the second paper, Nicolaidou, Tozzi, Kindynis, Panayiotou and Antoniades present an evaluation study
of a gamified application designed to support children’s stress management. The app, named Kids Stress
Relief, adopts interactive storytelling and is endowed with game mechanics (like rewards, levels, and feed-
back) in order to engage the user in learning how to identify bodily signs of stress and perform stress relief
exercises. According to the authors, gamification is a novel concept for stress management apps and its po-
tential has not yet been exploited in conjunction with behaviour change techniques and stress management
methods. The app was tested on a sample of children (5 to 12 years old) and data were collected through the
app logs and a usability scale. The reported results are quite promising, both in terms of usability and ac-
ceptance of the app, and the authors discuss the instructional and design implications for psychology-based
apps.
The perception of teachers about game-based interventions is a core issue that significantly affects adop-
tion. In the third paper, Loperfido, Dipace and Scarinci investigate teachers’ confidence, knowledge and
attitudes about the use of digital games in teaching activities. Data were collected through questionnaires
and focus group discussions. According to the authors, the investigation reveals that the target cohort (kin-
dergarten, primary and middle school teachers) have a lack of competence in strategies and methods for
game-based learning. In addition, games were considered not for their innovative potential, but rather in
relation to traditional and consolidated teaching practices and aims, which are taken as benchmarks.
Weitze, in the fourth paper, provides an interesting example of game making. In this study, twenty-two
second grade students at a primary school in Denmark used Scratch to develop their own games in small
teams. The constructionist approach adopted allowed the students to achieve discipline-specific learning
objectives (reading, interpretation, interactive communication and linguistic production) in line with the
school curriculum, alongside with the transversal skills of collaboration and self-regulated learning. The
method adopted is in line with problem-based learning theory and constructionist ideas, leveraging stu-
dents’ creativity and motivation.
The last research paper, by Cecchinato, Papa, and Foschi, is a quasi-experimental study testing a teaching
method based on gamification. In this gamified approach, one of the key elements of games – the presenta-
tion of a challenge to be overcome – is used to elicit reflection on a grounded problem. In the approach
presented by the authors, a clearly-defined pedagogical model is used for throwing down, driving, and
closing the challenge, guiding the educators through the whole educational process. The results of the pa-
per are highly encouraging, as the gamified approach adopted increased students’ self-determination and
motivation for learning, and met their basic psychological needs of autonomy, competency, and relatedness.
The intervention described in the paper successfully applied a technique focused on critical examination of
real-world problems.
The first of the “platforms/tools” columns included in this issue, by Benassi, focuses on a non-digital ap-
plication of game elements, namely escape rooms. These are time-limited, team-based live action games
that have encountered a surge in popularity in recent years. Inspired by point-and-click adventure games,
they require players to solve puzzles collaboratively in order to exit a seemingly inescapable physical room.
Benassi’s column provides an overview of escape rooms, outlining their applications for educational pur-
poses (including training of 21st century skills) and their evolution over time. However, in practice, escape
rooms are rarely compatible with the logistics and budgets of schools. Hence, the author also discusses
the growing educational use of virtual and mixed reality escape rooms, bringing to a close their full circle
evolution– from the digital to the non-digital, and back to the (partly) digital again.
The second “platforms/tools” column, by Nicolucci, presents A Mortician’s Tale, a narrative-driven,

89
Francesca Dagnino, Marcello Passarelli, Carlo Perrotta and Donatella Persico

death-positive videogame that explores the themes of death, loss, and funeral rites. While the game was
not expressly designed for educational purposes, the game developers’ chief aim was to sensitively expose
players to these themes and encourage them to explore them in a meaningful way. The paper argues that,
for this reason, A Mortician’s Tale could be employed with adolescents to foster reflection and discussion
about death and loss without eliciting excessive stress on their part. Videogames have been widely used for
fostering disciplinary knowledge or motivation for learning, but this paper clearly illustrates the potential
games offer for dealing with difficult and/or sensitive topics that nonetheless can and should be part of
school education.

1. REFERENCES
Buckingham, D. (2013). Beyond technology: Children’s learning in the age of digital culture. Hoboken,
NJ, USA: John Wiley & Sons.

Deterding, S., Sicart, M., Nacke, L., O’Hara, K., & Dixon, D. (2011). Gamification. using game-design
elements in non-gaming contexts. In CHI’11 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing
Systems (pp. 2425-2428). New York, NY, USA: ACM.

Earp, J., Dagnino, F. M., & Caponetto, I. (2016). An Italian pilot experience in game making for
learning. In R. Huang, Kinshuk, & J.K. Price (Eds.), ICT in education in global context. Lecture Notes in
Educational Technology (pp. 171-199). Singapore: Springer. doi: 10.1007/978-981-10-0373-8_9

Gee, J. P. (2003). What videogames have to teach us about learning and literacy. Computers in
Entertainment, 1(1), 1-4.

Malone, T. W. (1980). What makes things fun to learn? Heuristics for designing instructional computer
games. In Proceedings of the 3rd ACM SIGSMALL Symposium and the First SIGPC Symposium on Small
Systems - SIGSMALL ’80 (pp. 162–169). doi: 10.1145/800088.802839

Persico, D., Passarelli, M., Pozzi, F., Earp, J., Dagnino, F. M., & Manganello, F. (2019). Meeting players
where they are: Digital games and learning ecologies. British Journal of Educational Technology, 50(4),
1687-1712.

Persico, D., Passarelli, M., Dagnino, F. M., Manganello, F., Earp J., & Pozzi, F. (2019). Games and
learning: Potential and limitations from the players’ point of view. In M. Gentile, M. Allegra, H. Söbke
(Eds.), Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Vol. 11385, Games and Learning Alliance. 7° International
GALA Conference (pp.134-145). doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-11548-7_13

Prensky, M. (2006). Don’t bother me, Mom, I’m learning! How computer and video games are preparing
your kids for 21st century success and how. St. Paul, MN, USA: Paragon House.

Ratan, R., & Ritterfeld, U. (2009). Classifying serious games. In U. Ritterfeld, M. Cody, & P. Vorderer
(Eds.), Serious Games: Mechanisms and Effects (pp. 10–24). doi: 10.4324/9780203891650

90