5 Tips to Convert Elearning Assessments into Serious Games

ESTABLISH LEVELS:

Incorporate the notion of promotion and demotion and that immediately makes it Snakes and Ladders.

Divide the assessments into levels; without passing one, the other shouldn’t be accessible. For example, in a customer service representative interaction game, you could create levels such as:

–Understand the customer’s problem

–Suggest an appropriate solution

–Guide implementation of the solution

–Gain trust of the customer

Each level can be accessed only when the learner has successfully completed the earlier level.

PLAY THE DEVIL’S ADVOCATE:

Make the assessment a little more interesting; add conflicting voices to the user’s inner voice.

You could randomly support or oppose both the correct and incorrect responses before the user confirms his or her response. Add a convincing rationale to your arguments for and against the user response.

SELL A HINT:

Hints shouldn’t be free; they should come at a cost. What more? You could randomise the cost: sometimes free, sometimes at a fixed cost, and costly at other times.

Just as you play the devil’s advocate and learner may be in two minds, create an opportunity to sell a hint. Selling a hint simply means that if the learner chooses to take a hint, the learner doesn’t earn as many points as they would for answering correctly without a hint.

MAKE THE LEARNER EARN THE FEEDBACK:

Avoid the usual formula: That’s not correct and the correct answer is this.

What’s-Correct is best assimilated after deeper processing of all the distracters in an assessment. Immediate feedback is critical in programmed instruction; however, set costs/standards for reasonable performance before you provide the What’s-Correct feedback.

USE SHADES OF GRAY:

Incorporate the not-absolutely correct distracters on your answer options list.

Most assessment distracters are framed as either correct or incorrect options, which contradicts how the real world works.

All you need to do is reward semi-correct or not absolutely correct choices differently.