 give a seamless sense of player progression, providing frequent rewards that act as external motivators.
In addition to motivation, video games provide a fictional context in the form of narratives, graphics and music that foster players’ interest [3]. Due to the improvement of the supporting technology, this interest is furthermore growing for the individual and extends to wider and wider population groups. Because of this potential, a great deal of work has been done on ways in which video games can be successfully used for educational purposes.
According to Mejía and Londoño [4] virtual games represent one of the most important possibilities for learning processes in children and adolescents. They warn that these games can be applied in fields such as the teaching of culture, citizenship, and social sciences, among others. Despite these findings, questions arise about the effectiveness of gamification in education. Most studies and reviews of empirical studies on gamification indicate that they generally have positive effect on motivation and behavior [5, 6, 7, 8].
In gamification, it is generally observed that there is a greater possibility of engagement and ability to connect with intrinsic motivation. This simultaneously favors the production of cognitive, emotional and social benefits [9, 10, 11].
On the other hand, Connolly [12] presents a systematic review of the literature on game-based learning, focusing on the attainment of empirical evidence. In his results, he emphasizes the need for more rigorous evidence of the effectiveness of games and their real impact. This implies a significant questioning of the results and conclusions of previous research on the subject based on the questioning of instruments and techniques of data collection and analysis.
Despite the growing popularity of gamification in educational contexts, there is a paucity of empirical evidence investigating under what conditions and how gamification works or fails. A review of existing research shows that the impact of gamification is often assessed through self-reported measures relating to an individual's perceptions and attitudes through survey instruments (p. 446).
Beyond the above, some educational researchers observe this type of entertainment with great interest. De-Marcos et al. [14] asserts that video games are interactive activities that continuously provide challenges and objectives to players. This implies an intentional learning process to acquire progressive mastery of the game mechanics. In the same sense Busch et al. [15] present the results of their experiment. In this experiment, the researchers used games from a web platform for an e-learning experience—gamified—and evaluated it. Their findings suggest that the platform serves as a collaborative database where students could create and answer questions, using it as an alternative way to study and review geography and mathematics topics, among other content.
Thus, it is difficult to judge definitively the positive, negative, or neutral nature of the inclusion of games in educational environments. However, it would seem that research findings are pragmatically divided into two large groups: the first, broad, which usually concludes that games are effective and the second, composed of those who attribute to flaws in the game design and not to the platform itself when the results of the edutainment application are not as expected [5, 6, 7, 8].
Despite these discussions, the educational field is not exempt from the use of video games and in Latin America in particular, the approach to this issue refers to figures of recognized trajectory in the field of communication. In this sense, Orozco et al. [16] argue that the playful part of learning leads to inadvertent learning. They argue that children obtain them from video games, for example, when they are able to remember sequences in the controls, passwords and tricks that allow them to improve their skills or eliminate obstacles in the video game. In other words, even though these games are not intended to educate, they end up doing so.
This way of educating by playing also produces relearning,which is understood by Orozco as “creative and useful extensions of unnoticed learning that are produced consciously and deliberately with the aim of expanding the educational process of video gamers” (p. 11). However, superimposing edutainment on education requires a complex study of the intervening variables and their characteristics. That is why this proposal, although important, requires an experimental work that also allows a wide control of variables to obtain reliable results.
In this sense of control of variables, Scolari’s [17] conceptualization of some characteristics of edutainment or gamification deserves special attention. In his opinion, these characteristics are fundamental and refer to digitalization, hypertextuality, reticularity, interactivity, and multimediality, to which he then adds virtuality, non-sequentiality and modularity. To these can be added the principle of multiplicity described by Calvino [18]. This approach is consistent with the fact that these processes have “a fractal-like, network-like mode of organization, that is, where all connections are revealed as constituent parts of the network, in an indefinite way” (p. 25). Consequently, the various formats make possible the hypertextual chain made up of images, sounds, messages and other digital forms.
This perspective implies the transformation of human thought. This leaves behind univocal explanations, closed models and the great truths consigned in books. From this perspective, knowledge is built from the fragment to the complexity and vice versa, but without a linear order. Thus, knowledge is constituted as a network that is woven in each of the turnsor appearance of each fragment. In turn, each fragment or piece gradually configures a relatively complete image. This conception breaks with the idea of a traditional program or curriculum, basing the possibility of human learning on the bond with others. This finally invites us to think of communication as a mediator for learning.
According to the theoretical review, edutainment implies the design of new educational environments, duly articulated to some objectives and the tools offered by communication to promote the integration of knowledge, dialog, interaction and cognitive development of students. Therefore, it is necessary to adjust the conceptualization inherent to the traditional educational environment, including the notion of authority.
In this order of ideas, the characteristics of the new media and of the current forms of interaction between agents tend to eliminate verticality in the relations between these agents (educational community). In the same way, it cannot continue in the blind acceptance of the book and the teacher as the only legitimizing sources of truth and knowledge [19]. Therefore, instead of incorporating technology into traditional pedagogical processes in a vague and disjointed manner, we should promote a pedagogy that broadens the univocal vision of its functioning. This is achieved when a dialogical perspective is assumed to generate new forms of encounter with society and culture within the framework of the contemporary context, that is, between screens.
It is clear that the full and articulated incorporation of screens, games and, in general, the bet of edutainment in educational institutions, is a major challenge for contemporary educators. However, success in this task surely allows for new ways of accessing and generating information and knowledge. Edutainment makes educational events more flexible, transforms, changes perspectives, and extends the scope of educational events. In short, it promotes the search for new alternatives in a series of variables and dimensions of the educational act.
This leads to the delocalization of knowledge for the use of different communication tools and for the interaction with different types of codes and symbolic systems. As the most important achievement, edutainment also leads to the choice of the formative itinerary, of strategies and techniques for training and to the convergence that favors access to multiple sources of information. Finally, with this form of screen incorporation, different forms of content, but also of human relations, are complexified and articulated.
Precisely, the incidence of this tool in social interaction forces us to proceed with caution. Buckley and Doyle [20] suggest that the research carried out so far on the effectiveness of edutainment in an educational context should be assumed with prudent caution rather than with absolute optimism. To this end, more and more comprehensive research is required to examine the variables involved in the educational process and the context in which it takes place; learning styles or personality traits, for example, are part of these variables. Their consideration is important because sometimes success can be mistakenly attributed to an edutainment strategy that can be better explained in terms of these variables.
In summary, more research is needed, but especially longitudinal research. With this, it is possible to demonstrate with empirical evidence the relationship between the use of the tool and the behavior generated during the game in students to make valid inferences [16, 20]. It is equally important to clarify that edutainment does not get to build an experience through mechanisms based on theoretical frameworks. It uses aspects of play mechanisms to mediate an activity. It may include motivation or competition (which are game mechanisms), but it does not go so far as to include mechanisms based on social theories in an intentional or specific way.
According to González and Blanco [21], emotions can have a positive or negative influence on learning and, above all, on the motivation to learn. Whether or not a student feels motivated to learn something is one of the keys to autonomous learning. In a similar vein, Domínguez et al. [22] insist that it is necessary to focus on the fundamental elements that make games attractive in order to create an edutainment system that increases student motivation. In the same sense, although for them the reward system is not the only element, it is highly significant.
At this point, the issue that calls is the emotional aspect and the impact that this aspect would have on the tendency to do or repeat something. On this issue.
Csikszentmihalyi [23] highlights that the fact of experiencing the notion of success depends on the ability to concentrate on something. This concentration must be sufficiently intense to lead the individual to abstract from himself and the situation he is living. In this state and in the