Andreas Schrader | Searcharxiv

arXiv2026

AI-Generated Interactive Fiction for Educational Use: A Pilot Study of Perceived Comprehensibility, Coherence, and Engagement

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) can produce educational content at scale, including interactive and narrative learning experiences, but technical generation alone is not sufficient: scenarios that are confusing, narratively inconsistent, or unengaging are unlikely to be useful in practice. This paper presents a pilot user-centred evaluation of AI-generated interactive fiction (IF) for educational use in higher education. Using a previously described domain-agnostic pipeline and a shared STEM content base, we generated a controlled pool of scenarios and asked participants (N = 22, STEM higher-education) to play one generated episode and rate it on narrative clarity, story-content coherence, engagement, and length acceptance. A free-text prompt captured open feedback. Narrative clarity and length acceptance were rated positively, engagement sat near the neutral mid-point of the scale, and story-content coherence was the weakest dimension by a clear margin. Qualitative feedback points to quiz integration as the bottleneck. Artificial in-fiction motivation for quiz prompts and abrupt setting changes were reported. Feedback also pointed to missing story-level consequences for wrong answers. From these observations, we derive concrete design implications that can inform larger follow-up studies, including later work on learning effectiveness.

cs.HC↗

arXiv2023

Technological Challenges of Ambient Serious Games in Higher Education

Naturally, university courses should be designed to attract students, engaging them to achieve learning goals. Toward this end, the use of Serious Games has been proposed in the literature. To address positive effects, such as content memorability and attendance rates, we propose Ambient Serious Games as games embedded in a computer-enriched environment, which is only partially perceived mentally by players. In this paper, we describe five technological key challenges that must be overcome to seamlessly and beneficially integrate an Ambient Serious Game into teaching. These challenges, derived from a scenario, focus on the technological provision and conduct of such games based on a software platform. They include (1) the integration of physical smart learning objects in heterogeneous environments under dynamic constraints, (2) the representation of abstract subject matter using smart learning objects, (3) the guided or automatic connection of all involved components, (4) the explanation of the components, their interaction, as well as the serious game itself, and (5) feedback on the game state.

cs.HC↗