Serious Play

Abstract

As an introduction to our special issue focusing on the integration of game research and design, this article describes a 4-year, multiteam experimental research program designed to study the effectiveness of games as a training tool for teaching about and mitigating cognitive bias. Teams investigated the effects of a number of game mechanics (e.g., reward, feedback) on learning outcomes. Game designs were iterated over multiple development cycles, informed by the results of both playtesting and formal experiments. The research showed that it is possible to reduce biased decision-making both immediately and long term. The remaining articles in this special issue will describe the details of the games and the experiments, the independent validation that was done of the research, and the lessons learned.