The paper "Gameplay performance as a predictor of Adaptive Expertise in primary school students" by Mariana Rocha and Mariana Rocha has been accepted as a full paper at GALA 2024, the Game and Learning alliance conference organized by the Serious Games Society. This year the conference received more than 100 submissions and only 29% of papers were accepted.

The paper explores the potential of gameplay performance to predict gains in adaptive expertise among primary school students. More specifically, this research evaluates adaptive number knowledge (ANK), an ability to understand whole-number relations and apply this knowledge flexibly to solve new problems. Our study involved 130 primary school students playing our digital game "Seven Spells," which focuses on arithmetic operations and numeric tables. Students’ ANK skills were assessed through a pen-and-paper timed task before and after playing the game for six weeks. Three gameplay performance metrics were collected: the highest score in single-player mode, the leaderboard position in single-player mode, and the highest level achieved when playing against virtual players. Linear regression analysis revealed that the progress against virtual opponents significantly predicted improvements in ANK skills. Our contribution suggests games can support adaptive expertise development and highlights the importance of identifying specific game design features for learning.

Congratulations to our researchers!