On Evaluating Social Learning Outcomes of Serious Games to Collaboratively Address Sustainability Problems: A Literature Review

Serious games are increasingly explored as collaborative tools to enhance social learning on sustainable management of land and natural resources. A systematic literature review was conducted to examine the current state of the art of the different methods and procedures used to assess social learning outcomes of collaborative serious games. Forty-two publications were identified and included in the review following study selection and quality assessment steps. Extracted data from the publications were categorized in relation to five research questions. Approaches that were used to assess cognitive, normative, and relational learning outcomes of collaborative serious games were subsequently identified based on the categorizations. As a result, these approaches distinguished between the nature of learning in the assessment of collaborative serious games. Combined, these approaches provide an overview of how to assess social learning outcomes of collaborative serious games, including the methods and procedures that can be used, and may serve as a reference for scholars designing and evaluating collaborative serious games.