Constituting, testing and validating the gender learner profiles of serious game participants

Though it may be commonly believed that well-developed gender-based learner profiles exist, this is far from the case. This research is focused on compiling complete profiles for female and male learners from a dated and piecemeal literature and validating them for participants of serious games. Two hundred twenty undergraduate business students played The Marketing Game! and completed exit surveys soliciting their attitude toward the game experience on four learning dimensions that serious games teach, as well as an inventory designed to reveal learning styles. Results establish empirical support for the gender-based learner profiles of serious game participants on all hypothesized learning dimensions. Theoretical and pedagogical implications are discussed.