Towards the Development of a Games-Based Learning Evaluation Framework

The field of games-based learning (GBL) has a dearth of empirical evidence supporting the validity of the approach (Connolly, Stansfield, & Hainey, 2007a; de Freitas, 2006). One primary reason for this is a distinct lack of frameworks for GBL evaluation. The literature has a wealth of articles suggesting ways that GBL can be evaluated against particular criteria with various experimental designs and analytical techniques. Based on a review of existing frameworks applicable to GBL and an extensive literature search to identify measurements that have been taken in relevant studies, this chapter will provide general guidelines to focus researchers on particular categories of evaluation, individual measurements, experimental designs and texts in the literature that have some form of empirical evidence or framework relevant to researchers evaluating GBL environments particularly focusing on learner performance. A new evaluation framework will be presented based on the compilation of all the particular areas and analytical measurements found in the literature.