Measuring Game Engagement

Rosa Mikeal Martey, Kate Kenski, James Folkestad, Laurie Feldman, Elana Gordis, Adrienne Shaw, Jennifer Stromer-Galley, Ben Clegg, Hui Zhang, Nissim Kaufman, Ari N. Rabkin, Samira Shaikh and Tomek Strzalkowski

Simulation & Gaming, 2014, vol. 45, issue 4-5, 528-547

Abstract: Background . Engagement has been identified as a crucial component of learning in games research. However, the conceptualization and operationalization of engagement vary widely in the literature. Many valuable approaches illuminate ways in which presence , flow , arousal , participation , and other concepts constitute or contribute to engagement. However, few studies examine multiple conceptualizations of engagement in the same project. Method . This article discusses the results of two experiments that measure engagement in five different ways: survey self-report , content analyses of player videos, electro-dermal activity, mouse movements, and game click logs. We examine the relationships among these measures and assess how they are affected by the technical characteristics of a 30-minute, custom-built, educational game: use of a customized character , level of narrative complexity , and level of art complexity . Results . We found that the five measures of engagement correlated in limited ways, and that they revealed substantially different relationships with game characteristics. We conclude that engagement as a construct is more complex than is captured in any of these measures individually and that using multiple methods to assess engagement can illuminate aspects of engagement not detectable by a single method of measurement.

Keywords: art; art complexity; attention; character customization; content analyses; customized character; EDA; educational games; electro-dermal activity; engagement; game clicks; interactivity; measurement; mouse movements; multiple methods; narrative; narrative complexity; presence; self-report; transportation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:simgam:v:45:y:2014:i:4-5:p:528-547

DOI: 10.1177/1046878114553575

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