Evaluation of Serious Games Intended to Be Used in Education: Systematic Review

Abstract

Serious games have been used as an innovative teaching strategy to make learning more effective. However, it remains important to identify the serious games that are best suited to the needs, expectations, and pedagogical objectives of a teacher. Moreover, using games in educational situations requires teachers to question the elements that make up the pedagogical and game aspects, universe functioning, and conditions of use. Precise and comprehensive information about the relevance of serious game content to specific learning situations can be obtained by examining the game’s components. The aim of this review is to identify, describe, classify and summarize the main elements of existing research on the evaluation of serious games for education. In addition, our study could help identify and analyze potential gaps in the use of serious games in education. A qualitative analysis was conducted by selecting 37 key articles from Google Scholar, Scopus, Web of Science, and PubMed databases. This study could be useful for researchers and practitioners interested in the use of serious games in education. It could also contribute to the continuous improvement of digital learning in education.