A new report from Muzzy Lane Software has revealed some positive findings for game-based learning on student achievement.

The Potential for Game-Based Learning to Improve Outcomes for Nontraditional Students is a report made possible by funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and it enabled Muzzy Lane to conduct interviews, surveys and focus groups to see how students perform when learning through gaming.

The report found largely positive findings on the benefits of game-based learning.

"Students expressed a consistent need for mobile first activities and assessments that make productive use of their time and fit into their busy and unpredictable lives, helping them study on all of their devices while juggling the responsibilities of family, work, and school,” said Muzzy Lane in a statement.

The five positive things that game-based learning best enables, the company said, are as follows:

1. Auto-assessing whether students can apply what they have learned

2. Building employment skills in real-world contexts

3. Providing safe environments where students can learn through trial and error

4. Developing and assessing critical thinking skills

5. Facilitating learning strategies and student success skills

In order to expand upon the success of game-based learning, the report found that game-based projects need to be more cost effective for schools to be able to afford them.

"New business and development approaches that overcome these obstacles will be critical to unlocking game-based learning's potential to help nontraditional students now and in the future,” Muzzy Lane said.

"Muzzy Lane will share these findings, as well as details of its recently announced cloud-based Muzzy Lane Author platform, on January 22nd at the LearnLaunch Across Boundaries Conference on a panel discussing Software to Support Competency-Based Learning.”

Read more about Muzzy Lane Software here.

Article by Nicole Gorman, Education World Contributor

1/21/2016