Design, Development and Evaluation of an Educator-Oriented Serious Role-Playing Game Authoring Platform

Abstract

Creating Serious Games (SG) involves a complicated and expensive process. Various stakeholders are commonly included in the process, each with their own specific roles. Several initiatives have been proposed to improve the creation process, in particular devising design methods to guide the design of SGs, and authoring tools to simplify and expedite the development of these games. One of the main drawbacks of these initiatives is the non-existent role of educators in the creation process apart from supplying learning materials. Empowering educators to design how learning tasks should be presented in games and implement their desired designs into finished games as they see fit would improve the accessibility and long-term maintainability of SGs without requiring input from game experts. This could further improve the adoption of SGs in the classroom. Additionally, students would not only benefit from the proven potential of game-based learning, but also from tailor-made SGs. The motivation to address the gap motivated the research in this thesis that investigated the design, development and evaluation of ARQS (Authentic Role-playing-game Quest System), an educator-oriented Serious Role-Playing Game (SRPG) authoring platform. ARQS consists of a design method and an authoring tool devised specifically for educators as target users, and as such possessed processes, workflow and features that was identified to be suitable for educators. Evaluation of the platform included participatory studies with educators. The design method was evaluated through focus group and case studies, and the authoring tool was evaluated in several usability studies. Findings from these studies showed the general suitability of the platform for educators. The output of the platform was also evaluated to identify the potential effectiveness of the SRPGs designed by educators. Experimental studies conducted in the research found that the SRPGs were comparable to non-gaming learning activity but could also be a more effective form of learning tool.