Gamers and learning

Games and simulations have been a part of military education for a long time. With the emergence of the computer gaming industry, with its continuous improvement in technology and fidelity, there is a potential for synergy. Simulations and games developed specifically for the military are generally costly as the full development cost must be covered. These are also expensive to update to match current technology. In this project at the Norwegian Army Military Academy we have used a commercial game specifically designed to have the potential to be used by the military. The learning objective for the course was to understand squad level tactics. Our results show that even if the cadets, particularly the gamers, enjoy playing the game and believe that it supports their learning process, it does not have any significant positive or negative effect on learning. In this paper we present research that explains similar results and discusses potential reasons for a lack of clear change in the overall performance. We conclude by proposing a new study to assess the longer term effects of game based education at NAMA.