The claims of games: A comprehensive review and directions for future research

Educational games have become the lightning rod for learning and preparing a future skilled workforce. Both the people, who argue against and for games agree that learning is possible, but what is learned is another issue. However, the claims about games for learning lacks substantial research and for the most part remains merely philosophical arguments. We report the results of an extensive review of these claims in the literature. Our grounded theory analysis leads to a broad two-fold categorization scheme (physiological and psychological claims) with the psychological group having four subcategories of claims. We discuss the strengths and weaknesses of existing research as well as point to areas for future research. In particular, we draw attention to the lack of attention paid to the demands of subject matter and argue for a greater emphasis on the development of technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPCK) in the design of learning games.