Graduate Skills and Game-Based Learning

This book explores the efficacy of game-based learning to develop university students’ skills and competencies. While writing on game-based learning has previously emphasised the use of games developed specifically for educational purposes, this book fills an important gap in the literature by focusing on commercial games such as  World of Warcraft  and  Minecraft . Underpinned by robust empirical evidence, the author demonstrates that the current negative perception of video games is ill-informed, and in fact these games can be important tools to develop graduate skills related to employability. Speaking to very current concerns about the employability of higher education graduates and the skills that university is intended to develop, this book also explores the attitudes to game-based learning as expressed by instructors, students and game developers. 
Matthew Barr  is Lecturer at the University of Glasgow, UK, where he convened the university’s first game studies course and founded the peer reviewed student game studies journal  Press Start . He is currently Programme Director for the Graduate Apprenticeship in Software Engineering. He serves as Vice Chair of British DiGRA, sits on the Board of the Scottish Game Developers Association and is the current Chair of the BAFTA Scotland Games Jury.