Games and Gaming and Students

Trinity University's Coates Library adapted an immersive marketing campaign strategy known as an alternate reality game when designing the library's 2006 new student orientation. Objectives emphasized critical thinking skills, orientation to the online and physical environments, interactions with librarians, and entertaining engagement.

Students are arriving on campus with a set of expectations and behaviors that differ from those of previous generations, including the faculty, who are faced with engaging them in the process of learning. Students' experience with new kinds of games and media has shaped their view of what learning is and how it occurs. This conversation will explore the changing way that young people approach playing, learning, and working and will examine how the concept of play can build bridges between traditional and emerging student populations.

Student retention within Universities is becoming more important as the Government is targeting 50 percent of 18 to 30 year olds to experience higher education before 2010 in the UK. The need to integrate new students from different economical and social backgrounds has made student induction and integration to academic life more important that ever [1]. Student drop out rates throughout the UK for the year 2002/03 was 15.4 percent for mature students and 7.8 percent for young students [2]. The University of Ulster drop out rate for the year 2002/03 was 12.8 percent overall combining both groups of young and mature students. It is against this background of student retention rates that this project has been undertaken.