”Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.”
Playing and learning go hand in hand. When we are actively involved in a game, our mind experiences the desire to understand how a new system works.
In my previous article I discussed the need to look for new approaches to the difficult task of making information security training and awareness processes produce genuine behavior change in end users, and I mentioned the use of gamification as a strategy to increase motivation during those processes.
Today I want to introduce a couple of new concepts that are very often confused with gamification: Game-Based Learning (GBL) and Serious Games.
Gamification, game-based learning and serious games
While gamification means using motivating elements that encourage competition among users, GBL consists, directly, of presenting the contents of a training process through a video game. In other words, the first technique takes elements from games and inserts them into the training process, whereas in the second it is the person who is moved into the game environment to achieve an educational goal.
GBL processes generally go hand in hand with what are known as Serious Games, a label applied to games whose main purpose is not entertainment, but which were created for another end, such as raising awareness about a given topic or teaching.
What can we learn from a video game?
The educational nature of video games is nothing new; their use in that field dates back a long way. A well-designed game can transport us to a virtual world that feels familiar and relevant, which is motivating because it is easy to see and understand the connection between the learning experience and real life.
Within an effective game-based learning process, the person works toward a goal, choosing actions and experiencing their consequences. They can make mistakes in an environment free of danger and, through that experimentation, learn and practice the right way to do something. This keeps them highly motivated to rehearse behaviors and reasoning processes that can be easily transferred from the simulated environment to real life.
Playing to learn security awareness
In the information security field, although the list is not very long yet, there are already some video games aimed at training end users. CyberCiege, picoCTF and Hackend are some examples that illustrate the variety of topics and the different genres that can be covered.
Although there are still no rigorous studies measuring the exact effect of these games on end users, including them in awareness campaigns results in a decrease of unsafe habits among those users.
Conclusion
Video games have proven to hold great potential as educational tools. Game-based learning aims to harness those capabilities, using serious games to convey knowledge, and it is a process through which deep behavior change in people can be achieved.
Although there is still a long way to go in the use of video games as tools for security awareness training, their use is certainly a trend and the number of available games keeps growing. It will be worth staying alert and getting to know the alternatives that could prove useful for tackling certain topics. So, are you ready to include these video games in your training programs?
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