Using Traces to Qualify Learner's Engagement in Game-Based Learning

Analysing learners' behaviour continuously and under ecological conditions can help designers, trainers and teachers to analyse, design, validate, and also to adapt and personalize the learning game. Metrics methods propose to collect any interactions between a user and the game. While classical metrics methods fall within quantitative approaches, we aim to extract some qualitative information on high-level behaviours. This paper is focused on learners' engaged-behaviours. Thus, to identify and to qualify learners' engagement from their traces of interaction, we combine a theoretical work on engagement and engaged-behaviours, the Self-Determination Theory, the Activity Theory and a trace framework. We implemented this approach on 12 players' interaction data collected during four months. As a result, we identified and qualified four activities that refer to different types of engaged-behaviours. Thus, this user study show the feasibility and the validity of the proposed approach.