نگرش دانشجویان نسبت به استفاده از بازی های ویدئویی آموزشی برای پرورش قابلیت ها Students’ attitude towards the use of educational video games to develop competencies

1. Introduction Educational video games (EVGs) represent a promising tool to motivate and to engage Higher Education students who have disengaged from traditional learning methodologies. In fact, literature review suggests that traditional learning methodologies are not appealing students to study anymore while EVGs can be used to encourage students to learn in new ways or enjoy otherwise tedious tasks (Hanus & Fox, 2015). Moreover, EVGs can support active learning (Oblinger, 2004) and provide immediate and frequent feedback of the learning progress using visual displays like badges and points (Kapp, 2012). It is also assumed that the elements that make games fun along with the nature of games themselves are intrinsically motivating (Adams, Mayer, MacNamara, Koenig, & Wainess, 2012). The use of video games in education has been summarized in three main strategies (Van Eck, 2006): a) the use of commercial offthe-shelf videogames (COTS) that take advantage of the existence of contents in these games that can be used for educational purposes; b) the use of serious games ea type of video games developed with non-recreational purposes where learning is the primary goal; and c) to make students build their own games allowing the development of problem-solving abilities, programming skills, and game design skills. Examples of the use of commercial off-the-shelf video games include the use of World of Warcraft to increase social competence (Visser, Antheunis, & Schouten, 2013). Serious games have been defined as video games intended to serve a useful purpose (Girard, Ecalle, & Magnant, 2013) where the useful purpose is learning. Examples of the use of serious games include Blokify which was created to develop students’ competencies related to three-dimensional figures and their bidimensional representation by the standard views and perspective (Saorin, De la Torre Cantero, Díaz, Meier, & Trujillo, 2015). One example of making students to build their own video games as part of their learning process is the case provided by Yang and Chang (2013) where students designed digital games based on biology course content to increase retention of course content and critical thinking skills.