Increase motivation in game-based learning environments

In this article, the authors propose to address two main items contributing to motivation in Game-Based Learning Environments: the flexibility of the system and the immersion of the users in the system. This article is split into three sections. The first one deals with the need for adaptation from both the teacher's and the learners' point of view. The authors need to collect traces about pedagogical activities in order to propose observation features for updating a user model adapted for learning games. This user model is seen as an explicit collaborative object displayed in the game. The second section concerns the necessity of keeping the users immersed in the game and gives some guidelines for immersion concerning game design, game play and metaphorical support. The last part illustrates these points through a game-based learning environment called "learning adventure". The generation of a learning session in the environment is described and a real experiment is used as a support for explaining the concepts presented above. © 2011 Lavoisier, Paris.