Understanding Engagement in Educational Computer Games

Fiona Nah, Yunjie Zhou, Adeline Boey and Hanji Li

Abstract

This paper presents an empirical study to understand engagement in educational computer games. Engagement is defined as an experience that occupies an individual's attention and captures one's interest. The nature of engagement is viewed as comprising conditions, actions, and outcomes of engagement. The data collection method includes in-depth interviews with 12 educational computer game players who have experienced engagement in playing these games. We use the Grounded Theory (GT) approach to develop an understanding of user engagement in the computer game-based learning context.