ABSTRACT
Serious games are a relatively new approach to mediated learning. They have broadened the thematic and methodological scope of former concepts of entertainment education and are already used in various educational contexts, such as healthcare, political education, and others. As compared to more traditional modes of mediated teaching and learning, serious games have changed the situation of the learner in many respects, challenging her active participation, stimulating direct experience via learning by doing, fostering immersion and involvement, and, based on this, increasing fun, motivation, and effort. In this experiential process, the role of teachers is certainly undergoing a fundamental change. The traditional role of the instructor is giving place to the roles of game developers, in-game coaches or advisors and expert coplayers. These teaching teams are tasked with providing situations for learning which are complex enough to be challenging but not threatening, using tools to track the learners’ performance, identify obstacles, and adapt game diffi culty. After all, learning with serious games remains a goal-directed process aimed at clearly defi ned and measurable achievements. As such, serious games have to implement assessments to inform teachers and learners about the progress and outcome of the learning process. As game developers Sande Chen and David Michael (2005) state: “Serious games, like every other tool of education, must be able to show that the necessary learning has occurred. Specifi cally games that teach also need to be games that test” (p. 2). The issue of assessment in serious games is prominently addressed by Shute, Ventura, Bauer, and ZapataRivera (this volume, chapter 18). The authors develop the concept of “stealth assessment,” which describes a way of seamlessly embedding a dynamic and formative type of assessment in a game-based learning setting, thus gathering relevant information without interfering with performance, involvement, or game enjoyment. To further explore the possibilities of (stealth) assessment in serious games, this chapter takes a closer look at the defi nition and characteristics of serious games and the scope of methodologies to monitor and evaluate the learning process and its results, including aspects of data collection, interpretation, and feedback.
