Research

As a neuroscientist, our co-founder Catherine Croft, Ph.D. is passionate about applying her research skills to the board game world.

We are interested in two main areas:

1) Effect of games on learning (i.e., content knowledge)

2) Accessibility of modern family board games.

Learning

Rankings

Effect of Games on Learning

In collaboration with the Yale University Center for Teaching and Learning, we conducted a study exploring how games impact learning using a case-based lesson plan. For this project, we designed a digital game called “Operation: Ebola!” that was tested in an immunology course. We found that the more the students played the game, the higher their gain on pre-/post-test knowledge scores. This research was published in the peer-reviewed journal Simulation & Gaming.

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Family Games Ranking

Family games are usually assigned low scores on the BoardGameGeek rank, the largest database of board game rankings. This is most likely because their audience consists of hobby gamers who favor higher complexity and more recent publication dates.

To better reflect the quality of family games, we decided to create our own family games ranking system using a formula combining hobbyist and mainstream audiences.

Our initial ranking is illustrated above. We plan to release a new version at least once per year.