In What Ways can Computer Games Help Train for Employment?

Room. A B00254109
University of the West of Scotland, Ayr, Scotland
B00254109@studentmail.uws.ac.uk
1. Abstract
Serious games are a particular type of computer game that is created with the intent of
educating the user about problems that can be encountered in real life and training them in
how to correctly deal with them. This paper will aim to look at and review existing journal
articles, as well as other academic literature related to the topic of serious computer
games. This paper will look at the methods that were found on how they help provide
users with knowledge and encourage them to learn how to deal with tasks that may be
found in real-life workplace scenarios. Using what is found in the literature, further
suggestions and ideas will then be discussed as to how the aforementioned academic
literature could be improved. This will help to broaden the knowledge on the topic of
serious games and how they can help users with learning new skills which can be
applicable to the workplace.
Keywords / Key Phrases:
Serious Games, Motivation, Repetition, Co-operation, Learning, Performance
2. Introduction
The medium of computer games has often been criticised as being detrimental towards
the well being of those that play them, notably in the mental development of young
children and adolescents. There exists numerous research studies that have explored the
various societal problems that computer games have been perceived to cause, such as
the desensitization towards acts of real-world violence (Carnagey, Anderson and
Bushman, 2006) and an increase of negative behaviour towards Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual
and Transgender (LGBTQ) communities (Pulos, 2013).
However, despite the lingering social stigma, the medium has started to see use as a
platform to help educate people and train them so that they are more accustomed to tasks
that they may encounter later in life. This is done using games that are specifically
developed with the full intention of training and educating the user, as opposed to being
pure entertainment. These particular kind of computer games are referred to as serious
games (Corti, 2006).
Serious games place users in a virtual learning environment where they are presented
with a series of tasks and goals that simulate tasks that can be found in a real-world
physical environment. The tasks that the user is presented with are then completed
through playing short, simple games that can be repeated as often as is required until the
user has a complete grasp on the task at hand. This allows users to experience and
prepare to complete these tasks in the real world without any risk of physical injury to
themselves or other people and without any cost of any physical resources that may get
damaged in the training process. Serious games have been applied to various real-world
practices such as medical training (Petit dit Dariel et al., 2013) sexual education (Arnab et
al., 2013) and job training within the workplace (Bachvarova et al., 2012).
3. Literature Review
In terms of employment training, serious games have been found to have a positive effect
on user performance. This can be partly owed to fact that the tasks present in the games
can be repeated as often as is required until the user has a full understanding of the tasks

at hand, which has been found to be one of the most effective methods of improving
memory retention (Hintzman, 1976 cited in Kwon and Lee, 2016). It is by using repetition
that Kwon and Lee (2016) experimented to view the effects that serious computer games
had in training people who had mental development disabilities. Their experiment was
made using willing participants, aged 15-19 years old, taken from five different high
schools each of which with varying mental disorders. The students were then tasked with
playing through two different serious games related to hydroponics and apple packaging
over a series of attempts. During each attempt, the user's accuracy and speed was
measured so as to test for their overall performance of the tasks. Their experiment
benefited by having the students split into different test groups, allowing for a control group
to compare results against. However a discrepancy was found in the results between the
two games as the hydroponics game yielded a greater boost in performance than the
apple packaging game. This was theorised to be due to the difference in the overall
difficulty and complexity of the tasks in the different games.
Another way that serious games help in the learning process is through applying ways to
help motivate users into learning. Mller et al. (2016) sought to find out how effective
serious games were as an alternative means of educating and training users for manual
work without the cost of additional time or resources. They experimented using a game
involving which involved the simulation of assembling an electric motor on a boat by
identifying the parts of the motor and how they correctly assembling them as well as
identifying the tools required for the job. To help with the training process, motion capture
technology was used to identify the user's movements and provide them with user
feedback based on their actions. During this process it was found that game mechanics
that rewarded users for learning, such as experience points being gained upon the
successful completion of tasks or having the games narrative outcome change according
to player actions, helped motivate them to engage with the learning process and to
improve their performance in the game. The effects of motivation through serious games
being applied to learning has been explored in other topics, such as with Boendermaker,
Prins and Wiers (2015) experiment to explore how serious games could be used to help
motivate adolescents with substance abuse problems to overcome their addictions,
however in this particular case the effects of motivation were left unclear due to a lack of
evidence.
Serious games have also been shown to have a positive effect on improving team cooperation with users. However, whether users are able to work on team-based tasks or not
is entirely dependant on whether it is permitted by the game itself. The effects of teambased learning were tested by Bozanta et al. (2015), who experimented using a serious
game hosted in a virtual reality environment. In it, users were split into groups and tasked
with working together to locate and describe a series images and then later communicate
with each other to put them in the correct order so as to construct a narrative out of them.
Results were taken through a questionnaire and through discussion between users and
supervisors. In their conclusion, they found that users had a positive reaction to working
within a team as they progressed through the game and users had an improved perception
on group cooperation.
4. Discussion
In regards to the experiment made by Kwon and Lee (2016), through their experiments
they found that the repetitive nature of serious games does help improve user
performance of tasks. It's notable that the tasks simulated in the serious games that were
used, lent themselves to having repetitive gameplay by simulating work with a fixed
routine.

In order to better test the effectiveness of task repetition, serious games could be used to
simulate more unpredictable working environments, such as working in fields where users
have to interact with customers and may have to alternately scan items that the customer
is purchasing and stack shelves with additional stock. This could be done through adding
an event that occurs within the game, simulating other tasks that can be found working in
the work environment, that triggers after a certain period of time and interrupts the normal
flow of gameplay. User performance could be measured both before and after this event
has been triggered to see if the user has retained the information through repetition even
after having had the flow of the game disrupted by a different task.
It's also worth noting that in the literature covered above, only one of the articles that was
discussed mentioned the use of people within different age demographics during their
testing. Other literature only covered groups of people within a small, adolescent age
group or was left as an unknown factor in their writing.
The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) found that people aged 18-36 and over 50
were the two most likely demographics to play computer games. However, it was also
found that people aged 36-49 were the least likely, with only 18% being found as computer
game players. With this knowledge, there should be more studies made using audiences
who are within the 36-49 age demographic. This would allow for greater knowledge on the
effects that serious games have on motivating and encouraging people to learn new skills,
with people who aren't as likely to have played computer games before and will have had
less experience with the medium.
For encouraging team building, Bozanta et al. (2015) found that people reacted positively
towards working together in groups. However the only results taken are from comparing
user reactions to co-operative work before and after testing was made using a serious
game. To better study the effects of team co-operation through serious games an
experiment could be made that compares the user reactions to working individually and
working together in a team.
This could be done using two different serious games, one that has users working
individually to accomplish a task and another where users communicate and work with
each other to perform another. To prevent results from being skewed, the tasks simulated
within the different games should remain similar in both the difficulty and complexity.. For
example, the individual game could have users assembling a piece of a robot and the
group task could have users assembling the full robot out of the pieces that were created
in the individual game.
5. Conclusion
In conclusion, the use of serious computer games has been shown to help improve the
user's knowledge as well as encouraging the learning of new knowledge. This is done
through the use of the following features:

Having tasks that can be repeatedly completed by the user, which helps improve
the user's memory retention and improving their performance.

Motivating users to learn through the use of game mechanics that reward them for
successfully completing tasks, thus encouraging them to learn more and improve
their performance.

Improving performance with team co-operation by giving users opportunities to work

and interact with each other.

However, there is still a limit on the knowledge that we currently have regarding the topic
of serious games and the methods and tests covered by the literature above could be
improved to help broaden the topic.
The effects of repetition could be improved by having games simulate a more
unpredictable working environment by featuring tasks that interrupt fixed working
routines. The knowledge surrounding the effects of motivation being provided through
game mechanics in serious games could be broadened by testing serious games with
people from older age demographics that are more likely to be unfamiliar and less
experienced with computer games as a medium. Finally, more tests should be made to
test the effects of team co-operation by comparing user reactions and performance from
performing a task both individually and co-operatively.

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