How a Serious Game Supports Elementary School History Classes in Teaching About the Bombardment of Copenhagen in 1807

This study is intended to support the Danish elementary school history classes in teaching pupils about the Bombardment of Copenhagen in 1807. The study included 22 pupils from two classes. One class with 11 pupils was included in the experimental study, which used a serious game to communicate the learning objectives of the topic. One class with 11 pupils served as the control group and used a more traditional approach with readings from the history textbook.
The evaluation was based on a knowledge test with learning objectives from the curriculum. Additionally, the gaming engagement was evaluated in the experimental group through a questionnaire and semi-structured interviews. The game
design was focused on intuitiveness, clear goals, and narrative engagement; which was revealed in the findings with the highest score from the gaming-engagement questions. Further, the results revealed higher understanding of specific learning objectives in the experimental gaming group compared to the control group. Previous research has the same findings, but there is a lack of improved suggestions for how to make the perfect match between game content and learning, as well as a lack of improved methods when evaluating games with children or early teens.