Personalized serious games for information literacy

An intriguing experimental study carried out in Thailand at Chiang Mai University. They used a game designed to develop people's information literacy in resisting and detecting fake information. The researchers aimed to find out whether personalising a game to appeal either to introverts or extroverts (intro/extrovertion judged through a much-used personality questionnaire) would improve the game's impact on the students' learning. The article includes an interesting table summarising research evidence about which features of serious games have been found to be positive, negative or neutral for introverts and extroverts (I must be an introvert!)
The overall findings were (to summarise crudely) that the personalisation did not seem to increase knowledge, but for introverts in particular the personalisation increased their engagement with the game and their confidence in learning.
From the conclusion:
"Personalization of serious games for educational purposes by means of suitable game elements for introverts and extraverts cannot effectively improve knowledge acquisition and retention compared to Non-personalized serious games.
"Personalized serious games can enhance intrinsic motivation, specifically in terms of perceived competence, which can be used as an interesting tool for educational environments and settings.
"Personalized serious games can significantly improve engagement, almost 37 percent in terms of average and total playtime for introverted people, but may not affect extraverted people.
"Designing personalized serious games by integrating suitable game elements for various personality traits might offer a cost-effective approach. However, careful consideration is essential regarding the selection of game elements, as their individual effectiveness may vary significantly."
Reference: Thongthip, P., Intawong, K., Chernbumroong, S. et al. (2024). Design and analysis of personalized serious games for information literacy: catering to introverted and extraverted individuals through game elements. Humanities & Social Sciences Communications, 11, article no. 725. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-024-03172-5 (open access)
Photo by Sheila Webber: hydrangea, August 2024