A Case Study of an Academic Achievement-oriented Student in Game-based Learning

VISOLE (Virtual Interactive Student-Oriented Learning Environment) is a teacher-facilitated constructivist pedagogical approach to empower game-based learning. In combination with scaffolding, situated cognition, reflection, and debriefing, VISOLE aims at providing students with opportunities to acquire subject specific knowledge in a multi-disciplinary fashion and sharpen their higher-order thinking skills for problem solving. Farmtasia is the first online game designed to facilitate the VISOLE approach. We conducted a qualitative case study, in the setting of formal curricular teaching in a secondary school, to look into the course of students´ learning in VISOLE. This paper discusses a part of the entire study, focusing on delineating an impeding phenomenon, arbitrary gaming, which emerged in an academic achievement-oriented student´s learning process. The findings provided insights into the issue of implementing VISOLE and game-based learning in general in school education.