Exploring Play-Learners’ Analytics in a Serious Game for Literacy Improvement

Abstract

The collection and analysis of analytics incorporated into serious games provides researchers with objective data on player behavior related to serious game design elements and learning. Such analytics offer insights about play-learners engagement that is not possible to capture through traditional techniques. Visualization of learning behavior data can allow for a comparison between the pedagogical intent of the game design and the play-learners actual behavior within the serious game. This paper describes the use of game-play logs to identify pathways through gaming content in a serious game app for literacy improvement. The paper describes the technical aspects of processing game-play logs and their transformation into visualizations, and considers how these visualizations can be used to explore play-learner behavior in relation to the pedagogical intent of activities embedded in the serious game app.