Serious Game Classification

It is a role playing game whereby the player becomes an investigator who attends the scene of an 'incident' that involves antibiotic use. The player must find evidence to support and negate their own ideas, in addition to those presented by the characters in the game. In the process of solving the mysteries, the player learns responsible antibiotic use.

The game uses a Problem Based Learning pedagogical approach, where the problem is set prior to the player researching possible solutions. In the game, this means that characters will explain the incident to the player who will guess what caused the incident and will find clues that support or contradict her theory (and the pet theories of characters in the game). By eliminating red herring threads, the player builds a mental model of the chain of events causing the problem, and thus, learns how inappropriate antibiotic use can harm communities.

The educational content contained in the game was decided together with a group of experts in the area and the content is based on European curricula1. The evaluation was done both to assess the usability of the game, and to evaluate the educational potential. The usability study was performed with 129 high school pupils to see whether the created games are actually playable and enjoyable. The students were asked to play the generated games and asked to give comments regarding the game. 98% gave positive comments about them. A smaller sample study was successfully used for evaluating the educational potential . The game is available in 10 European languages and it is now part of an approved initiative by ministries of education from United Kingdom, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Greece, Italy, Poland, Portugal and Spain.

The following learning objectives are aimed to be taught through the game, and have
been successfully evaluated:
- Antibiotics kill bacteria.
- Microbes cannot be spread by sneezing or coughing.
- Vaccines help protect people against some microbes.
- Bacteria and viruses are the same.
- Antibiotics kill viruses.
- Most coughs and colds get better without antibiotics.
- If antibiotics are overused, bacteria can mutate to become resistant to the
drugs.
- You should only use antibiotics with your doctor’s permission.
- Overuse and abuse of antibiotics leads to antibiotic resistance.
- Antibiotics are needed to treat bacterial illnesses and to make you feel better.

Distribution : Internet - Open Source - Free
Platform(s) : Browser (Flash)

Links

• Play it Now !
• http://www.edugames4all.org/