Mobile gaming is becoming increasingly popular among the general public with 'casual gamers' featuring as the new breed of gamers. Is there any evidence showing learning benefits from the use of commercial mobile games? Are there any commercial mobile games that have been both popular and of learning benefit?
Hi Christothea, I have done research on my own and together with a colleague at the Unversity of Gothenburg, and we have found links between the amount of tme spent on playing commercial-off-the-shelf games and learning outcomes in school among Swedish children and teenagers. You can find refs at my research profile page www.kau.se/forskare/pia-sundqvist. Kind regards, Pia Sundqvist, Karlstad University
Hi Pia, thanks for this, your work is very interesting. Have you examined in particular mobile games? I have examined MMOs as well and I am now more interested in mobile games and learning.
Dear Christothea,
At this moment, one of the most popular mobile "games" for learning is Duolingo, a free iPhone and Android app that can be used to learn foreign languages. It has a large, growing community which helps to implement new languages. I say "game", because it's actually more a form of gamification than an actual game. There have been studies on the effects of Duolingo (https://www.duolingo.com/effectiveness-study), but these have not been published in a peer-reviewed journal.
As you probably know, learning effects of commercial video games have been demonstrated in various fields. However, there are few studies that focus specifically on mobile games. You might find this article interesting: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21529831
Yours,
Maarten Jalink
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