Games for education of deaf students: A systematic literature review

Abstract

Games have been applied in many educational contexts. Their potential in the learning process has been extensively documented, being able to be integrated into the educational process in several ways. For instance, game-based learning approaches reveal a significant and positive influence in several areas of cognition, resulting in improved performance in several areas of knowledge such as mathematics. In this paper, supported by a Systematic Literature Review (SLR), we argue that digital games for learning purposes need to be more documented in terms of the design and development process of game experience for deaf children and its correlation with learning outcomes. As preliminary results of this SLR on peer reviewed publications from 2013 to 2018 related with Game-based Learning approaches for deaf students, participant students in publications’ sample are aged between 7 and 15 years old, were classified as deaf (eight) and deaf with cochlear implant (2). In our final sample, 12 publications, 12 digital games and one analogue (card game) were used in the studies. In what respects to digital games genre, seven studies mentioned it, being the Quiz the most frequent, which raises the question: are deaf students playing games with educational purposes or answering content questions not integrated with playability?.