The predator game: A web based resource and a digital board game for lower grade school, focusing on the four biggest predators in Norway

Educational games are being more and more used in the schools to renew and variate the pedagogical learning activities (Rosas et.al, 2003). During a period of 18 months, the Nord-Trondelag University College, The Center for Predators in mid Norway and the game company Ablemagic developed an online multiplayer digital board game with the goal of increasing children’s motivation to learn more about the biggest predators in Norway (what they look like, what they eat, how they live, issues regarding public discourse, etc.). The game itself was design for both learning and entertainment. To gather empirical data from children playing the educational game, we did usability testing with expert evaluations, observations and group interviews. The expert evaluations were done by two students at the 3rd year Games Curriculum and two teachers / researchers at our University College. The observations were done by two researchers and one assistant. The results from the research within this project supports earlier research showing (intrinsic) motivation to be a very important factor for succeeding with game based learning, finding that the increase of (intrinsic) motivation often happens through factors like Collaboration, Competition, Immersion, Achievement and Exploration / Curiousness. It further supports Yee, et.al’s (2012) Online Game Motivation Scale and Mozelius’ (2014) Taxonomy of Interpersonal Intrinsic Motivation.