Social learning games can enhance students' learning engagement in the field of STEM. However, students do not always have the chance to experience social interactions during their learning activities. Augmented reality (AR) games have the ability to enable social interactions among students and allow them to interact with the virtual content while engaging in natural communication in the real world. However, little is still known on how to design social AR games for learning. In this paper, we presented a textbook-based AR social learning game for elementary school students to practice math together. We designed and developed the game concepts based on previous studies and co-design sessions and conducted a user study to explore how students would behave and interact with each other in the game. Our findings extend the understanding of students' social patterns in both collaboration and competition conditions under AR settings. Based on the findings, we propose design implications for designing AR social learning games in the future.

Socially aware persuasive games that use immersive technologies often appeal to empathy, prompting users to feel and understand the struggles of another. However, the often sought-after standing in another's shoes' experience, in which users virtually inhabit another in distress, may complicate other-oriented empathy. Following a Research through Design approach, we designed for other-oriented empathy - focusing on a partaker-perspective and diegetic reflection - which resulted in Permanent; a virtual reality game designed to foster empathy towards evacuees from the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. We deployed Permanent 'in the wild' and carried out a qualitative study with 78 participants in the Netherlands and Japan to capture user experiences. Content Analysis of the data showed a predominance of other-oriented empathy across countries, and in our Thematic Analysis, we identified the themes of 'Spatial, Other, and Self -Awareness', 'Personal Accounts', 'Ambivalence', and 'Transdiegetic Items', resulting in design insights for fostering other-oriented empathy through virtual reality.

Augmented Reality is becoming an emerging trend in the development of play-and-learn experience and increasingly accessible to children. However, there is a lack of understanding of how to design AR games to effectively improve children's learning experience, especially with respect to the novel interaction and representation paradigms that AR affords. In this study, we describe the design and the implementation process of different interaction types (screen-touch and tangible interaction) and feedback mechanisms (non-diegetic feedback and diegetic feedback) in an AR math game for children aged 7 and 8. We report the insights based on our current prototypes and discuss the design implications for our future work.

Abstract: Instruction in physics aims at achieving two goals: the acquisition of body of knowledge and problem solving skills in physics. This requires students to connect physical phenomena, physics principles, and physics sym-bols. Computer simulation provides students with graphical model that unites phenomenon and principles in physics. However, such minimally guided approach may harm learning since it overburdens the working mem-ory. Also, simulation is inadequate in promoting problem solving skills since students need to exercise with a variety of physics problems. Intelligent tutoring systems (ITS), in contrast, train students in solving physics problems. In this paper, we designed an online puzzle game in physics that combines simulation and pseudo-tutor (namely QTut). We addressed three challenges: extensibility, scalability, and reusability in designing our game. We conducted usability tests with 10 participants on the game prototype to study the user performances and perceptions for improvement. The results indicate the game as educative and moderately entertaining. The use of scaffolding in the game positively contributed to the game learning experience. Moreover, the game GUI expressed information well that made the game understandable, even with little instructions. 1

A challenge for serious games designers is to integrate learning with entertainment. For this purpose, the generation of curiosity using the foreshadowing/back story technique is promising. To implement this technique we propose the Game Discourse Analysis (GDA) which discerns between information flow (i.e. the sequence of information elements in a chronological order) and game discourse (i.e. the manipulation of the information flow to make the game more engaging and effective). We elaborate on the GDA and describe how two of the authors applied it in order to implement foreshadowing/back story in the game ReMission. The GDA was found to have potential as a communication tool for multidisciplinary design teams. Also, two problems were signaled: (1) creating an information flow is laborious and designers may benefit from automating parts of the GDA; (2) substantial deviations from the optimal information flow by players’ actions may interfere with the intention of the game discourse. Additionally, in an experiment we tested the impact of this GDA supported manipulation on engagement (curiosity) and learning. We found that the GDA-supported foreshadowing/back story yielded more curiosity, but that it did not yield learning.