Duration: 2022 – 2024
Principal Researcher
Véronique Delplancq
Team Members
Ana Maria Costa
Isabel Oliveira
Joana Martins
José Pereira
Romain Gillain
Susana Amante
Susana Fidalgo
Susana Relvas
Ricardo Casañ-Pitarch
Justine Anne Sophie Celine Martín
UI&D: CI&DEI
The impact of globalization and the marked evolution of digital accessibility is very significant on practices at the level of higher education (HE). Digital tools are seen as a source of innovation by the entire academic community, from a perspective of efficiency, equal opportunities and pedagogical challenges (Remond, Massou, & Bonfils, 2021). Technology is intended to enhance learning regardless of the context and method chosen (Cowling, Crawford, Vallis, Middleton, & Sim, 2022). In fact, learning in HE has left little room for play, whose characteristics seem to be the opposite of the assumptions underlying the expectations pertaining to this level of education, namely due to the apparent childishness and infantilization associated with it. This view has changed, however, in contemporary times with the emergence of serious games, closely linked to the development of video games, technologies and digital culture (Liberona, Ahn, Lohiniva, Garate, & Rojas, 2021).
In the particular context of foreign language (FL) learning, teachers often use digital tools (online applications, platforms, etc.) (Martin, 2019) to carry out tasks. Serious games allow for language work through playful activities and can promote, depending on the game, the development of other associated skills, with creativity and an interdisciplinary perspective. This pedagogical tool, the result of the association of the playful aspect, using digital resources, to learning strategies, of FL for specific purposes, represents an original challenge of potential improvement for teaching-learning in this more specific context of HE courses in areas other than FL (Anatolievna & Anatolievna, 2019). For example, Tan Ai Lin et al. (2018) indicated Kahoot as beneficial in learning specific English for Media Studies at Sains University (Malaysia), as it motivates and encourages students, stabilizes knowledge and promotes and reinforces learning.
The project “Open the doors of the classroom: Serious games – the impact of gamification in the teaching/learning of foreign languages in higher education” (APSASeG) aims to:
- Improve student performances with the integration of gamified digital activities in foreign language learning in Higher Education (HE) in courses where foreign languages are not among the core subjects of the plan of studies
- Evaluate the effects of gamification in terms of skills acquired by the student (in FL and transversal), with a view to promoting employability;
- Observe the relationships between the actors in the teaching-learning process (teachers and students);
- Portray the teaching practices and consequent adaptations of the teacher's role and behavior;
- Look into the advantages and disadvantages of gamification, as well as the problems encountered during the implementation of this active methodology;
- Analyze the impact of gamified digital activities on distance learning;
- Design and evaluate a serious game, in English and French, for this level of education, based on the observations made.
The target audience is undergraduate students attending the Media Studies Course at the Higher School of Education of the Polytechnic Institute of Viseu (Portugal), whose training has a duration of 3 years. This course has the advantage of offering, over the first two years, 8 mandatory ECTS of FL (English and French) and two options of 4 ECTS each in the aforementioned FL.