ARGuing for Multilingual Motivation in Web 2.0: an Evaluation of a Large-Scale European Pilot

While there are some teachers who are dubious about the benefits of gaming in education, language teachers make great use of simulation/gaming methodologies and there are many supporting textbooks. While many of the simulations/games used are non-computer based, during recent years the computer game has become an important development in popular culture. During the same period there has been an appreciation that computer games can play a significant role in education. In this paper, we explore the use of one particular type of computer game called an Alternative Reality Game (ARG), a form of interactive narrative, often involving multiple media and game elements. We have developed an ARG to motivate secondary school students to learn a modern foreign language and have piloted this game across Europe in 2009. This paper presents a framework for evaluating games-based learning and provides both a quantitative and qualitative analysis of student performance in the pilot using this framework. The paper reflects on this analysis and provides directions for future research.