University of Houston

Game-based learning (GBL) remains an exciting idea in the realm of serious games, with hopes that games can be used as educational tools that would be supplemental to or even replacements for traditional ways of learning about various topics. We wanted to scientifically investigate if a game that teaches women about HPV and cervical cancer would be more effective in serving the interests of public health than pamphlets and websites dedicated to teaching the topic.

We also wanted to know if such a game was equally effective to the non-English speaking segments of the U.S. population, and translated the entire game into Vietnamese and Korean in order to see if women of these groups also equally benefitted from playing the game and if they were more knowledgeable about the topic after playing the game. After developing this game, we invited 111 people who speak English, Vietnamese and Korean to play the game on our computer. We analyzed the feedbacks the participants gave us to arrive at conclusions regarding the effectiveness of using educational games to disseminate health information.