co.LAB – A Digital Lab for the co-Design, co-Development and co-Evaluation of Digital Learning Games

Interest in Digital Learning Games (DLGs) has flourished at all levels of education. Digital Learning Games contribute to increasing students’ motivation and engagement, and are effective tools to support learner centered teaching practices. However, the design, development and uses of DLGs remain an issue due to the gap between teachers, game developers and researchers.

At the crossroads between educational and computer sciences the goal of the co.LAB project is to improve the design, development and uses of Digital Learning Games at all educational levels in Switzerland. This goal will be achieved by the development of what we call the co.LAB: a collaborative methodological framework between teachers, game developers and researchers in educational science, associated with a collaborative digital platform dedicated to co-design, co-development and co-evaluation of DLGs.

With the development, implementation and assessment of the co.LAB methodology and digital platform, we want to answer the following research questions (RQ).
RQ1: What methodology is needed to support collaborative DLG design and development?
RQ 2: What are the digital platform features necessary to support the collaborative DLG design and development process?
RQ 3: What are the effects of the methodology and digital platform on development cost and duration (efficiency)?
RQ 4: What are the effects of the methodology and digital platform on the quality of DLGs produced (relevance and effectiveness)?
RQ 5: What are the drivers for adoption of the methodology and digital platform by the educational, game developer, and research communities?

Following a design-based and mixed methodology, the co.LAB methodology and digital platform will be implemented and tested with the design, development and evaluation in real educational contexts of two showcase games dedicated to medical education (higher education) and computational thinking (secondary education). They will be used as a proof of concept. The experimentations will be carried out with classes both in a secondary school and at a university of applied sciences. The data collected will be based on an ethnographic approach on the one hand (questionnaires and focus groups carried out with stakeholders), and on the digital traces of users of the platform on the other hand.

By including a digital infrastructure for digital learning resources development and by providing, as a use test result, two digital learning games the project is fully in line with the PNR77 goals and more specifically with the module “Education, learning and digital change”. In addition, the co.LAB methodology, digital infrastructure and laboratory may serve both as an example of the introduction of digital in education and as a basis for future co-development of open digital educational resources in general.