Educational collaborative games for sustainable development learning

In a world regularly menaced by environmental and humanitarian crises, addressing education for a sustainable future becomes a critical issue. However, sustainability learning is extremely challenging, since the instructional tools to use must be able to deal with the inherent complexities of the matter, which can be summarized by three main factors: a) the interdisciplinary domains related to sustainability issues, such as ecology, economics, politics and culture, b) the involvement of several social structures, such as individuals, families and communities, and c) the demand for collaborative skills, creativity, flexibility and critical reflection. This thesis discusses educational games in the context of sustainability issues, by focusing on three main research questions: • RQ1: which are the theoretical models that underlie educational games design; • RQ2: which is the current state of the art of the developed sustainability games? • RQ3: how to design educational games aiming to foster learning and collaboration in sustainability scenarios? Concerning the frst two research questions, this thesis aims at identifying, from a theoretical point of view, the elements that facilitate the achievement of the instructional goals in general educational games. To this end, it surveys the literature related to the design guidelines and evaluation tools for educational games. From this investigation, it is possible to identify (i) the lack of validation of current tools and (ii) the need to balance both educational and engagement elements into game design. Then the work analyzes the state of the art of sustainability serious games, by establishing a taxonomy related to the main purpose of the game, broadly dividing the various approaches into the categories of: (i) educative games, i.e. those intended to teach, and (ii) persuasive games, i.e. those aimed at influencing players’ habits or opinions towards more sustainable practices. The in-depth analysis of both groups allows: (i) the initial proposition of key aspects that should be considered in the design of a sustainability game, attempting to enhance its effectiveness, and (ii) the defnition of open questions that demand further scientifc investigation. Then, the thesis tackles the last research question (from a more practical point of view) by detailing the design, development and evaluation of two sustainability games, WaterOn! and Sustain. In particular, since collaboration among users is a relevant dimension in sustainability learning, one of the research objectives of this work is to acquire a better understanding of users’ collaboration in sustainability games and which tools, game mechanics, design and narrative elements are necessary/suitable to effectively foster such cooperation. As for the two collaborative games developed, each of them has different learning objectives, target audiences and interaction designs in order to analyze the effectiveness of sustainability learning from two distinct instructional approaches (identifed in the theoretical part of this research). Sustain evaluation indicates its success in achieving both pedagogic and collaborative outcomes. Although WaterOn! lacks a similar evaluation, it allows conjectures about the adopted theoretical and practical tools, which also inspired the development of Sustain. Concluding, this thesis identifes the relevant theoretical background and guidelines that underlie sustainability game design, with specifc emphasis on the collaborative dimension of the learning process, and evaluate their effectiveness through the evaluation of games based on such guidelines. The positive results found in the assessment contributes to the current literature by supporting the effectiveness of educational games as an additional learning tool in the context of sustainability.