Effectiveness of serious games on learning achievement of DC circuit concepts compared with educational simulations

Background With the increasing adoption of educational technologies in recent years, related studies on the potential of serious games (SGs) in learning electricity have notable limitations, particularly in their comparison with educational simulations (ESs).Purpose This study aims to investigate the effectiveness of a serious game (SG) compared to an educational simulation (ES) on learning achievement of DC circuit concepts among senior students. It also attempts to measure the impact of these learning technologies on students’ emotional behaviors.Methods This research employs an experimental design using group comparisons. The targeted sample comprises secondary high school students from two different groups at a Moroccan public school. The experimental group includes 44 students who participated in learning activities using the serious game (SG), while the control group consists of 40 students who learned through the educational simulation (ES).Results and conclusion The findings revealed that the serious game (SG) led to a positive and significant improvement in understanding DC circuit concepts among senior students. While there was no statistically significant difference between the game and simulation groups regarding objective learning achievement, the game group demonstrated several notable characteristics. Students using the serious game (SG) were more concentrated, perceived higher subjective knowledge gains, and showed significantly greater interest in electricity topics compared to their peers in the simulation group. Surprisingly, the learning experience through gamification was not perceived as more enjoyable than interactive simulation-based learning. The findings also showed no relationship between objective learning gained by serious game (SG) and perceived emotional outcomes. However, self-reported cognitive gains, increased concentration, electricity topic-related interest and the enjoyment aspect are moderately correlated with each other. In light of these findings, this study offers promising recommendations for developing effective SG designs, and identifies external aspects that should be considered in the future studies.