Adventure video games with supplementary vocabulary material outperform control conditions on receptive and productive vocabulary tests¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · quant-synthesis r2 · q2
Currency · newest study 2025 · checked against its sources 2026-10-20 (automated, 1 of 1 entry) · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q2 i? An adventure game with supplementary material overcame the control group's performance on immediate receptive and delayed productive vocabulary tests; L1 glosses in subtitles improved acquisition. → A. Pradheepa 2025

Evidence¶

A. Pradheepa 2025¶

A. Pradheepa, K. Gurusamy & T. Pushpanathan. (2025). The role of language games in enhancing vocabulary acquisition: A meta-analysis. Australian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 8(1). https://doi.org/10.29140/ajal.v8n1.2073

q2 · i? · quant-synthesis · r2

The review reports, citing Janebi and Haghighatpasand (2019), that an adventure game with supplementary material beat the control group on immediate receptive and delayed productive vocabulary tests; it also reports, citing Chen et al. (2020), that L1 glosses in subtitles improved vocabulary acquisition.

"the adventure game with supplementary material overcame the control group’s performance in the immediate receptive and delayed productive vocabulary tests"

Discussion¶

Learner Variables¶

• Oral Language — outcome: instruction changes it
• Vocabulary — outcome: instruction changes it

Related Claims¶

• The review reports that students learning with serious games often perform better on content knowledge assessments than those in traditional settings — the general claim this finding bears on, with the studies behind it
• Game design, not learner age or linguistic background, determines DGBL effectiveness; adventure games outperform non-adventure games — related
• Earlier meta-analyses, as reported second-hand, find that glosses improve L2 vocabulary learning and that text-and-picture glosses outperform single-mode glosses — a broader claim this one bears on
• Extramural English gaming relates to better L2 proficiency, but effects vary by activity type and strategy — related
• Digital game-based learning supports long-term retention of second-language vocabulary — related
• Captioning second-language videos produces large benefits for comprehension and vocabulary acquisition — related
• Multimedia glosses improve EFL students' immediate vocabulary acquisition relative to reading the same texts without glosses — related
• Only L1-gloss-L2-ex and L1-in-text-gloss conditions significantly outperform the no-gloss control on all three vocabulary recall tests — related
• All three L1 gloss conditions significantly improve immediate vocabulary recall over a no-gloss control in EFL reading — related
• Practice defined as meaningful language use plus effortful practice of difficult features is beneficial and even essential for second language acquisition — related