Approaches to game-based learning often frame games as tools to deliver content efficiently or increase student engagement. Approaches that focus more on games as mediators of educational discourse are currently underexplored. This article presents a framework centered on play for ethical deliberation, or the key elements necessary to create educational ethics games suited for contexts where ethics cannot be taught as content. Rather than teaching for content understanding, designing play for ethical deliberation means creating engaging educational experiences that challenge student players to grapple with wicked problems, engage in ethical deliberation, and reflect on their values. We describe key design elements and present two design cases, intending to guide researchers and designers in creating game-based interventions that can be used in practical contexts by providing theory and design detail sufficient for reproduction and testing. While further research is needed to refine the framework, verify its effectiveness, and test it in other content areas, surveys of students’ engagement from use and preliminary results of their in-class discussion support the framework’s potential.
Gaydos et al. (Wed,) studied this question.