On the Evaluation of the Combined Role of Virtual Reality Games and Animated Agents in Edutainment

摘要

Edutainment is a form of education combined with entertainment and vice versa. Virtual reality games and animated agents can provide high quality graphics that may play an important role to serve the aims of edutainment. However, since in edutainment the main aim of the software developed lies precisely on the combination of education and entertainment, there have to be appropriate evaluation methods that evaluate both these factors and assure that their combination is worth the effort and the development cost. So far, in the literature there have been evaluation frameworks that address each factor separately, but there is a shortage of frameworks on the combined role of education and entertainment of Virtual Reality games and animated agents. In this paper, I will survey current trends concerning the evaluation of educational software and Virtual Reality games and animated agents and will speculate about future challenges and design enhancements.