One promise of live action role playing games in education (i.e. edu-LARPs) is that they could boost situational engagement of learners, which can enhance learning outcomes. However, information about edu-LARPs' learning effectiveness is limited.
We investigated the alleged relationship between situational engagement and learning outcomes in a 2 hour long technological edu-LARP, in which a 40 minutes long learning period was integrally embedded in the middle (N = 124; age 18 - 34; heterogenous sample; 11 different game runs). Participants learnt how to operate an electromechanical device needed for winning the game (i.e., mental model acquisition).
Research question: Would game-induced and learning-induced engagement predict actual learning outcomes?