The simplified updating rule in the formalization of digital educational games

Competence-based Knowledge Space Theory (CbKST) has been proven to be a very well-fitting basis for realizing personalization in technology-enhanced learning. Especially in the area of game-based learning, however, some extensions and improvements are needed.

Personalization in a serious game cannot be regarded simply as the selection of game assets according to the individual learner's current competences but it must also pay heed to the up-keeping of a storyline, it must be ensured that no part of the story is omitted that may be necessary to understand a later part. Therefore, a CbKST-compatible Markovian model for storytelling is proposed.

A second issue is the ongoing, non-invasive assessment of the learner's current competences during the game. Every action of the learner within the game should be taken into account for the competence assessment, and the assessment must be done in real-time, i.e. there must not be any delay caused by the assessment which would interrupt the flow of the game. A simplified update procedure for competence assessment within CbKST is suggested which can solve this issue, and simulation results are presented comparing the new procedure with the classical one.