Digital game-based learning is a hot topic of research and development. Since the advent of computer and video games, educators were inherently interested in utilizing the beneficial aspects of computer games for educational purposes. These factors are primarily the intrinsic motivation of games, immersive environments, engaging stories, and an artful balance between challenges and continuously growing abilities. Proponents of computer games delivered a large number of empirical investigations revealing that games may foster the development of abilities and competencies. Besides the advantageous aspects of computer games, a variety of problems were reported by researchers. Due to the high costs of professional game development, many educational games are technologically poor and cannot compete with entertainment games in terms of visual design, possibilities for interactions, or storytelling. Moreover, many current educational games do not incorporate a sound psychological, pedagogical, or didactic background; instead they are focusing on transmission or rehearsal of isolated facts or skills. Finally, such games lack the ability to adapt to individual competencies failing to balance challenge and abilities regarding knowledge or skills. The ELEKTRA project, introduced in this article, aims for addressing these problems relying on an interdisciplinary approach of cognitive science, neuroscience, pedagogy, game design, and game development. The project will develop an adventure game that can keep up with commercial games and that focuses on primarily curriculum-related educational purposes by incorporating a sound psychological and pedagogical framework. Moreover, the project will prove the outcomes of research and development by a comprehensive game demonstrator.

One important aim of LeGE-WG is the integration of new eLearning methodologies into Learning Grid technology. A central issue in these new eLearning methodologies is the concept of individualised and personalised learning to be realised by adaptive tutoring systems. The adaptivity of such systems goes far beyond adapting to the users ’ preferences with respect to the user interface; in cooperation between computer science, psychology, and pedagogy, systems adapting, e.g., to the individual learners ’ current knowledge, cultural background, learning style, or special needs are developed. Adaptive tutoring systems can be integrated into a Learning Grid at different levels of ambitiousness. We will discuss these different levels of integration based on our prior experiences with respect to reusability of adaptive learning resources.

competence assessment Lifelong competence development is a fundamental premise for an information society, as well as major aim and challenge. Facing the variety of learning programs and qualification measures, problems emerge in supporting lifelong learning. Efficient competence development necessitates providing learners with learning opportunities which are appropriate for their current knowledge and for their individual learning goals. A related problem is the comparison of learners ’ competencies when these have been assessed in very different situations, at different ages, and with different methods. This work discusses the advantages of formally modeling competence and performance, which enables determining learners ’ latent, unobservable competence states based on their observable performance on a set of assessment methods. 1

Abstract. In the past, formal models of cognitive psychology successfully contributed to the development of computerized adaptive tutorial systems. Emotional and motivational aspects, however, were rarely considered, although a variety of studies demonstrated their significant influence on learning and performance. The aim of the current pilot study was to investigate whether the sound and empirically valid knowledge space theory is able to cover learning and performance in two different motivational states, which were hope for success and fear of failure. Moreover, within a factorial design these motivational states were combined with two different learning conditions. Prestructured learning sessions within an adaptive tutorial system were contrasted with rather free text-based learning. The data collected with 104 high school students in the domain of elementary probability theory indicate that knowledge space theory is able to represent the responses obtained in a post-test for both motivational states, as well as for both learning conditions. These results lay out a promising route to integrating cognitive and emotional/motivational aspects into a comprehensive psychological model for adaptive tutorial systems.

Adaptive eLearning systems aim at personalizing the learning objects and test items according to a learner’s specific needs. There is a variety of existing adaptive eLearning systems, either research prototypes or systems in commercial use. However, these systems are primarily limited to adapt to learners ’ current knowledge or to certain test items learners are capable of solving. Thus, in the past such approaches to adaptive eLearning have been criticized for the lack of adapting to individual factor and gender based-differences. In the current article we introduce the Competence Performance Approach, as an extension of Knowledge Space Theory, and propose the same methodology as basis for modelling individual factors and gender-based differences. 1 Adaptive approaches to eLearning Adaptive eLearning systems are used to tailor learners ’ views of learning objects to their personal requirements. Such technologies are often incorporated to guide through a large body of learning objects assisting learners in their comprehension of that material. For example, an adaptive system may only provide learning objects which are suitable for the

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