Handbook of Research on Decision-Making Capabilities Improvement With Serious Games

Book excerpt: How can a group be empowered to improve their ability to make decisions while also reinforcing the group’s intended values, beliefs, and behaviors? Like positive reinforcement, which introduces a desirable or pleasant stimulus after a behavior has been completed and has been found to be effective for reinforcing such behavior, serious games introduce the behavior as a pleasant experience through engagement and entertainment. Where positive reinforcement relies heavily on the willpower of the subject to complete the behavior on their own, serious games introduce a motivational factor from the beginning of the behavior. Serious games are designed for purposes other than entertainment, such as training, learning, creating awareness, or behavior transformation through the introduction of content, topics, narratives, rules, and goals. They are immersive, engaging, and enjoyable, which enhances motivation and learning. The development of serious games is grounded in theoretical backgrounds, such as motivation, constructivism, flow experience, problem-based learning, and learning by doing. This method has been used in a variety of industries, including education, healthcare, military, policy analysis, and business functions such as marketing or financial purposes. They facilitate problem solving through challenges and rewards and use entertainment and engagement components. Serious games can address specific skills for many domains, foster collaboration, provide risk-free environments, and be used as analytical tools for educational research. They reinforce intended values, beliefs, and behaviors of players while conveying knowledge, skills, and attitudes, providing an integrated and effective approach to the transformation of an individual, group, or organization. The Handbook of Research on Decision-Making Capabilities Improvement With Serious Games discusses the use of advanced technologies including extended and immersive reality, digital twins, augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), mixed reality (MR), and IoT sensors to improve decision-making skills and learning through serious games. This book discusses user engagement, game adaptation, content adaptation, and sensor technology. It showcases how to increase decision-making skills in individuals and organizations and incorporates the latest developments in artificial intelligence and machine learning. Led by experts with over 20 years of experience and covering topics such as serious game design, intelligent content adaptation, and machine learning algorithms. This book is designed for professionals in education, instructional designers, curriculum developers, program developers, administrators, educational software developers, policymakers, researchers, training professionals, privacy practitioners, government officials, consultants, IT researchers, academicians, and students.