Educational games both for children and adults are very diverse. So, before choosing one of them, it is useful to know the types of educational games by getting acquainted with their characteristic features.
A Classification of Educational Games
- Developmental. They usually do not have a determined goal, providing lots of room for creativity. They are mainly represented by software for preschool and school-age children, helping them express themselves, training imagination, and also contributing to moral and emotional development.
- Educational proper. This class, as the name implies, promotes the acquisition of some specific knowledge and skills. While the developmental type usually includes open-type games, the educational games are closed, i.e., they are aimed at achieving a certain result.
Educational Game - Amusing. At first glance, these types of educational games do not have a clear goal, as the focus is shifted from learning to entertainment. However, these apps serve an important function — they allow one to relax, whereas those actions that are performed with interest help to increase concentration, develop logic, and improve brain function in situations that require solving complex tasks.
- Diagnostic. This is a special type of software, with the help of which an experienced psychologist can easily draw many correct conclusions about a child’s condition based on the analysis of the way of solving the tasks set for the child and the style of game actions. Moreover, the interpretation of behavioral factors can be a part of the working algorithms of an app itself, which in this case plays the role of a test.
- With experiment-based gameplay. A characteristic feature of this class is an unclear way to achieve a goal, which requires a large number of attempts to identify the correct solution through experience.
Such a simple classification of educational games distinguishes the main types, but each of them can also be divided into several subcategories.
