The teacher's role in student motivation, and the strategies they employ to enhance their learners desire to study, has long be seen as an essential component of learning in the second language English classroom. This study has sought to explore the motivational impact of the teachers' use of the game-based response system Kahoot within an English foundation course at a university in Oman. This paper reports the findings of a questionnaire and participants perceptions on the motivational impact of playing a Kahoot in their English classroom, in addition to the opinions of students who took part in more in-depth interviews. These findings provided significant evidence that many participants felt overwhelmingly positive towards the use of Kahoot and that they perceived the use of gamification tools as motivational. The competitive element of this game emerged as being central to this perceived motivation, as well as the belief that it offered a break from the normal methods of instruction many participants had previously received in Oman, among many other factors.

Although game-based learning has gained significant attention in higher education globally, it is difficult to harness its engagement and interactions to improve student success. This paper argues that the use of digital games has the potential to interrupt social practices and increase engagement and interaction, thereby fostering meaningful learning. Using a mixed-method design, a digital game was used in a sport studies programme, involving 106 participants, over a two-year period. Data were collected through surveys, focus group discussions, and reflective blog posts. Structuration theory is considered as the theoretical lens, as it purports that recursive social activities of humans are continually recreated by human agents. The paper concludes that when participants engaged in a cross-cultural game-based learning environment, the social practices acquired through their academic career were interrupted, reshaped, and reproduced into new practices. A social constructivist game-based learning model to foster interaction within multi-cultural higher education classrooms is offered.

Designing an intervention that can effectively develop critical thinking skills is challenging because of the problems of transfer and domain specificity. The authors describe the design and development of a text-based game that could teach players important critical thinking skills in the domain of history. This was achieved by combining Schon's reflective practitioner model with game-based learning principles. The work contributes to the existing literature because the combination of the models employed allowed the game design to address the problem of transfer, as well as developing critical thinking skills. The instrument used to evaluate the effectiveness of the game was a questionnaire based on the reflective practitioner model. The gathered qualitative data were analysed through affinity diagramming. The results show that the game that was developed has the potential to encourage advanced levels of historical thought, as well as critical thinking skills.

Game-based learning has proven to be an effective teaching method in a variety of fields, including supply chain management (SCM). This paper discusses the use of simulation-based business games for training and education in SCM by evaluating the complexity of SCM games. The main contributions of this study are twofold. (1) Creation of a database of available games used for training and education in SCM. For the first time, 40 games were selected, and a comprehensive review of the complexity elements included in these games is presented. (2) Development of a game complexity index to classify, evaluate and order the selected games according to their complexity. The findings of this study will be useful to academics and practitioners interested in logistics and SCM professional training and education. It helps educational institutions how to choose the best game for specific SCM topics.

The study has chosen perhaps the most well-known serious game in the field of supply chain management: The Beer Game and using the means-end chains theory in an attempt to explore the innovative attributes that learners may wish to experience while playing. The study will also construct the psychological hierarchical structure of “innovative attribute – anticipated learning consequences – terminal value” so as to boost the assistive benefits of the Beer Game as an educational tool. Findings of the study revealed that the learners were expecting to attain the major paths including “Include 3D dynamic images - Increase fun of playing - Fun and enjoyment of life”, “Configure limited time rounds - Improve time management - Excitement”, “Include dialogue box - Facilitate effective decision-making - Sense of accomplishment”, “Include key events and Include teaching feedback - Train independent thinking - Sense of accomplishment” from the Beer Game.

Recently, digital games are used as a form of new media with massive potential for learning the English Language. To understand the typology of user experiences with digital games, the Presence-Involvement-Flow Framework (PIFF) was utilized. A series of semi-structured interviews were conducted with ten tertiary students in Northern Malaysia. Participants were asked to download and familiarize five digital language games (Duolingo, Memrise, Word Connect, Word Domination and Word Tower Puzzles) before the interviews. Thematic analysis technique was used to analyze the responses. The study’s thematic network comprises four global themes (Game Structure, Feelings, Skills Gained and Prerequisites) and seven organizing themes (Instruction, Game Design, Positive Emotional Outcome, Negative Emotional Outcome, Soft Skills, Technical Skills and Skills Required). The result is expected to be a good guideline or research framework for practitioners and researchers in exploring further the concept of user experience with English language digital games.

Escape room games are a popular recreative activity that recently started gaining popularity as both a means for conducting research studies and a teaching and learning environment. This paper follows a group of 16- to 17-year-old students in an escape room while they encounter logical challenges in order to escape from the room in a limited amount of time. Their ability to work effectively as a team and complete activities quickly is a key element to success. In this setting, the aim was to examine in what ways this innovative environment might help students benefit in terms of social metacognition. The findings gave evidence that during collaborative problem-solving in an escape room, cognitive demands are distributed among the players. This makes metacognition visible, facilitates shared management thus improving individual cognition, facilitates reciprocal scaffolding, and enhances motivation.

The frequency of word exposure in teaching materials, along with corrective feedback, has often been identified as a powerful variable in the learning of vocabulary in a foreign language. The effect of the number of times an action is presented as accurate in digital game-based language learning scenarios (i.e., knowledge of correct response [KCR] feedback) however remains under-investigated. This study aims to analyse the learning of L2 mobile operating system terminology by a group of students of English as a foreign language by using the data collected by the video game The Conference Interpreter in order to identify the predictive strength of term frequency (times a term is shown), KCR feedback (times a correct answer is provided), and corrective feedback (times a term is shown as incorrect) regarding short and long-term L2 vocabulary learning. The regression analysis performed showed that the factor ‘KCR feedback' may be a positive predictor of short-term vocabulary learning, whereas the other factors seemed to have no statistical effect at any significant level.

The objective this article is to verify the effects of an intervention program with exergames on the motor performance of children aged 8 to 10 years. The study included 64 children divided into experimental group and physical education group. The motor intervention used in this study was an exergame program with 18 sessions lasting 45 minutes each, twice a week. To evaluate motor performance before and after the intervention, the authors used the Test of Gross Motor Development - Second Edition (TGMD-2). This study showed a positive effect on the motor performance of children ages 8 to 10 years. However, no significant differences were found in relation to the effect of exergames intervention in the experimental group when compared to the physical education group that participated in PE classes. The results of this study indicate that exergames are effective tools for the significant improvement of motor skills.

The main aim of this research is to investigate how teachers perceive the barriers that limit the adoption and implementation of games-based learning in early childhood education on Cyprus. Teachers are working in public and private pre-schools. A 19-item questionnaire was administered to 148 early childhood teachers in Cyprus (78 public pre-school teachers and 70 private pre-school teachers). Factor analysis reveals three types of barriers to the use of games-based learning in early childhood classroom: lack of confidence, lack of support, and lack of equipment. The higher the teachers' self-efficacy in using digital games is, the lower the level of teachers' perception regarding the barrier lack of confidence becomes. Teachers with no frequent use of computer and digital games in the classroom perceive lack of confidence as a major barrier. Public pre-schools teachers have significantly more positive attitudes toward the usefulness of GBL than private pre-schools teachers.