Assessment Integration in Games-Based Learning: A Preliminary Review of the Literature

Games-based Learning (GBL) is developing a reputation with some educationalists as a useful supplementary approach for teaching and learning. Two important issues for GBL application developers and educationalists are how the learning is actually assessed within a GBL environment and how assessment is integrated into a GBL application. This paper presents the preliminary results of a systematic literature review on assessment integration in GBL and highlights the state of the literature in this area by outlining important papers to act as a guide for educationalists tackling this important issue. This paper defines assessment and discusses formative and summative assessment and embedded and external assessment, but is primarily interested in integrating assessment into games-based learning applications. A discussion of traditional assessment approaches and assessment approaches in GBL are presented. Finally the paper presents the preliminary findings of the literature review and proposes a model/framework for educationalists to incorporate assessment into a GBL application.