Abstract:

Since the mid-twentieth century there has been growing attention towards games and its applications in Education, which has recently increased mainly due to the augmented possibilities provided by technology. The underlying simplistic logic behind it is that children like to play games but not always enjoy school, so why not have games that can assist the learning process? Or better yet, why not make learning fun? The debate around the assumption that learning can be more effective if it has a playful side has been fueled in recent years, with examples like TED (Technology, Education and Design) Ken Robinson and Jane McGonigal viral talks and with modern concepts like gamification bringing further the discussion to the public sphere.

There is an increasing number of researchers, teachers, parents and even politics recognizing that games can be useful platforms for learning, particularly through its potential to engage and motivate, and that games can promote a number of valuable skills like strategic thinking, group decision-making and communication. However the relationship between games and learning (through educational games, serious games, Commercial Off The Shelf / COTS games, among others) is all but linear. There is still a lot of research that needs to be done concerning crucial aspects of education and learning (such as motivation, impact or assessment) and its interconnection with games, if we are ever to witness game-based learning massively implemented in education.

In this paper we present a bibliometric analysis of the scientific production regarding games and education, with the purpose of providing a macro analysis of the history, trends and focus of the research conducted since 1952 (the first result obtained) in the intersection between these two fields, recurring to Thomson Reuters Web Science’s database.

Our paper brings three main contributions:
1. An overview of the major focus of the scientific production in the field.
2. An analysis that aims at understanding if researchers have been contemplating the key terms considered relevant in education and training by the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training.
3. An outline of the quantitative effort dedicated to research in games and education, compared with the overall production in the scientific area of Education.

With this paper we intend to add to the discussion about the hype area of games and education, bringing to light new data that can serve for future analysis and investigations.

Keywords:

Education, game, bibliometric analysis.