Gaming versus storytelling: understanding children’s interactive experiences in a museum setting

Radeta, Marko; Cesário, Vanessa; Matos, Sónia; Nisi, Valentina

http://hdl.handle.net/10400.13/5672

Use this identifier to reference this record.

Name:	Description:	Size:	Format:
Gaming Versus Storytelling.pdf		3 MB	Adobe PDF	Download

Send Feedback

Authors

Abstract(s)

Museum’s audiences are increasingly looking for compelling expe‐ riences where, besides learning, engagement and enjoyment are key success factors. While gaming and storytelling are considered to be common approaches to engage audiences with a museum’s collections, a formal comparison of the two has not been found in literature. In this paper, we present the design and compa‐ rative study of two distinct interventions, namely a mobile game and a mobile story that were designed to engage a young audience with the exhibit of the local natural history museum. Focusing on the same scientific content derived from the museum’s collection, we compare the effects of both interactive experiences on a group of children. When comparing engagement, enjoyment and learning outcomes, we correlate results with data derived from observations and skin conductance biofeedback. The data collected so far suggest that children are 27% more excited when using the game application compared with the story driven one. Moreover, we find that children’s excitement peaks when encountering selected artefacts presented in the museum exhibit. Finally, children’s learning nearly doubled (44%) when using the game based experience versus the story. We conclude the paper by discussing the implications of our findings and by proposing potential future improvements.

Keywords

Interactive experiences Gaming Storytelling Skin conductance Proximity sensing . Faculdade de Ciências Exatas e da Engenharia

URI

http://hdl.handle.net/10400.13/5672

Citation

Radeta, M., Cesario, V., Matos, S., & Nisi, V. (2017). Gaming versus storytelling: understanding children’s interactive experiences in a museum setting. In Interactive Storytelling: 10th International Conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling, ICIDS 2017 Funchal, Madeira, Portugal, November 14–17, 2017, Proceedings 10 (pp. 163-178). Springer International Publishing.