Potentiating digital educational environments through data analytics

Abstract

When we think of educational games or apps, data analysis is not what comes first to our mind. However, a fundamental feature of all types of games/apps is the data. When playing, the system is constantly collecting data from the users, about the current state of the game and making predictions and decisions based on that data. This is what data analytics is all about. Games are an amazing way for scientists and educators to communicate with multiple data sets, as well as a great way for developers to get a wealth of relevant information to inspire the development of new algorithms and theories. The main goal of this investigation is to propose and validate techniques that allow the application of data analysis concepts to improve digital educational environments, especially the ones related to storytelling. In this paper, we discuss the development and implementation process of specific analytical techniques applied to Mobeybou, a set of story apps for children, as a first step to develop a set of guidelines to support, inform and optimize the evaluation of the efficiency of educational games/apps using data analysis.