Maximizing Engagement with Cultural Heritage through Video Games

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

I appreciate the authors' efforts to examining how video games may be used to foster engagement with one's cultural heritage. However, the work presented here is not well substantiated and not well executed. For example, why should young people of what particular age learn about their cultural heritage? To what age group or developmental period does "young" people pertain? What constitutes cultural heritage? What are the criteria used to establish a game as targeting cultural heritage? What findings have been obtained examining the literature pertinent to game play and cultural heritage among the age group of interest? What are the outcomes measured that link to cultural heritage? For example, what would one be expected to learn from having played a game that focuses on a particular cultural heritage?

I have stronger concerns about using undergraduates as validators of content shared by experts. If anything, one might have expected educators who use games as part of their instruction to be included as part of the study..not undergraduates who may or may not have had any experience in the classroom to date.  One suspects that undergraduates were used because of convenience only.

I appreciate the authors' research goals overall. However, I cannot recommend publication of this manuscript.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

We would first like to thank you for reviewing our work. The three authors of this article are also aware of its limitations. However, we do believe that it is a good initial approach to the construction of a theoretical framework to evaluate video games on cultural heritage, and we think that the findings of this study can serve as a good basis for companies and institutions to develop educational video games with a greater impact on students. Even so, we have tried to enrich the work with some modifications:

1. We have included more information in the Introduction to clarify any doubts.
2. We have included two sections in the Introduction to better specify what we mean by the terms “video games on cultural heritage” and “engagement”.
3. We have included a figure in the data analysis section for a better understanding of the process we have followed.
4. We have improved the Discussion and Conclusions section.
5. We have included more references.

All changes are highlighted in yellow within the document.

The purpose of the article was to develop a framework to guide video game developers with an educational intent in the initial design process. Taking into account the specific attributes present in the study we believe will help to create better video games to develop a better understanding of and attitude towards cultural heritage. It is expected to be implemented to evaluate existing video games in future studies. Therefore, the Results section is aimed at providing information about the meaning of each of the attributes detected in the qualitative study.

Regarding the validation of the framework, we chose students from the bachelor's degree program in elementary teaching because the number of teachers currently implementing video games in classrooms in our country is quite small. In addition, we believed that the experience they had as regular gamers -they were familiar with sagas such as Assassin's Creed- and the information on gamification and use of extended reality that they have been provided with during the degree would help to provide valuable information outside stereotypes. Indeed, this has been the case. Their opinions and ideas as gamers, students and future teachers have helped to complement and reaffirm the information given by the experts.

We hope that the changes made have helped improving our article.

Best regards, and again, thank you very much for the review and suggestions.

Reviewer 2 Report

·        Related works needs to be enriched by adding more recent works into a separate section for literature. Also, a summary of reviewed papers in a tabulated form that consider a comparative study of the papers in the field is required to be added at the end of the literature section. In this section, the authors are expected to heavily highlight the novelty of the proposed approach. It is not clear why other researchers decided the presented “methodological approach” and why it’s valid for games analysis and investigation.

·        In the data collection section, It is not clear how authors selected the study participant; also it is required to provide evidence of validation for participating expertise proficiency.

·        A diagram describing the iterative data analysis steps used is required to be added at the beginning data analysis section.

·        There is no evaluation results section to indicate the performance of proposed framework and associated dimensions (cognitive, emotional, and behavioral). It is recommended to use of the technology acceptance models to conduct the needed evaluation.

·        The comparison work of this paper should be carefully improved. The authors should compare their proposed research work with other existing & published related work.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

We would first like to thank you for reviewing our work. The three authors of this article are also aware of its limitations. However, we do believe that it is a good initial approach to the construction of a theoretical framework to evaluate video games on cultural heritage, and we think that the findings of this study can serve as a good basis for companies and institutions to develop educational video games with a greater impact on students. Even so, we have tried to enrich the work with some modifications:

1. We have included more information in the Introduction to clarify any doubts.
2. We have included two sections in the Introduction to better specify what we mean by the terms “video games on cultural heritage” and “engagement”.
3. We have included a figure in the data analysis section for a better understanding of the process we have followed.
4. We have improved the Discussion and Conclusions section.
5. We have included more references.

All changes are highlighted in yellow within the document.

The purpose of the article was to develop a framework to guide video game developers with an educational intent in the initial design process. Taking into account the specific attributes present in the study we believe will help to create better video games to develop a better understanding of and attitude towards cultural heritage. It is expected to be implemented to evaluate existing video games in future studies. Therefore, the Results section is aimed at providing information about the meaning of each of the attributes detected in the qualitative study.

We hope that the changes made have helped improving our article.

Best regards, and again, thank you very much for the review and suggestions.