Investigating the impacts of stealth assessment on physiological arousal during game-based learning

Game-based learning environments (GBLEs) incorporate stealth assessments, unobtrusively capturing learners’ evolving knowledge and competencies. However, literature have not focused on how these assessments may impact learners’ emotional experiences during gameplay. As such, this paper captured undergraduate students’ (N = 26) physiological arousal as they played Crystal Island, a microbiology GBLE, to understand how physiology changes over time as a reaction to stealth assessments embedded in the environment. Results revealed that learners experienced greater physiological arousal while completing stealth assessments and that, as time progresses, learners experienced a steep decrease in physiological arousal after they concluded their task. This indicates that embedded stealth assessments may be more physiologically arousing than intended. Overall, while stealth assessments can be a highly effective tool for promoting deeper engagement, they must be designed with emotional regulation in mind.