Serious games research streams for social change: Critical review and framing

Serious games research streams for social change: Critical review and framing

Serious games research streams for social change: Critical review and framing

Marcel Fernandes Dallaqua, Breno Nunes, Marly M. Carvalho

Abstract

"The number of scientific publications about serious games has exponentially increased, often surpass- ing human limitations in processing such a large vol-ume of information. Consequently, the importance of frameworks for summarising such fast-expanding literature has also grown. This paper draws a pano-rama of serious game research streams, focusing on higher education in engineering and management. The research design involves a systematic review using PRISMA guidelines, along with bibliometric and content analyses. The sample comprises 701 documents collected from both Scopus and Web of Science databases. For supporting bibliometric anal-yses, Bibliometrix and Biblioshiny tools are employed. In addition, a coding schema is developed for in-depth analysis of 701 documents selected according to the inclusion criteria. In short, the literature on serious games for engineering and management education grows more rapidly than modern science, following a globalised, collaborative and context-based trajec-tory. The results reveal five main research streams: game design guidelines, game design cases, game experiment guidelines, game experiment cases and generalists. These streams are summarised in a proposed framework. Cross-tabulation and statisti-cal analyses conducted in SPSS Statistics identify the key relationships amongst the research streams. Finally, opportunities to investigate serious games for sustainable development education arise, and there is a need for future efforts to formalise the framework classification algorithm."

Reference

Dallaqua, M. F., Nunes, B., & Carvalho, M. M. (2024). Serious games research streams for social change: Critical review and framing. British Journal of Educational Technology, 55(3), 735–751. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjet.13404

Keywords

Engineering and Management Higher Education (EMHE), Serious Games (SGs), Systematic Literature Review (SLR)