Sustaining English Language Education with Digital Educational Games: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Digital game-based learning progressively emerged due to its interdisciplinary nature for sustaining language education. Notwithstanding, presumptions regarding the pertinent nature of language education with admissible leisure learning activities arbitrate perceptions about digital gaming, allowing many educators to be sceptical about the impact of digital game play. Prior study has investigated numerous distinctive slants but is still scattered. The review of the impact of digital educational game in the English Language Learning (ELL) is comparatively meagre. In consequence, this systematic review was administered to ponder the emerging trend of digital games within the English language education in respect to cognition and affection domain. A total of 34 research articles from year 2018 to 2022 were identified over three databases, namely Google Scholar, ERIC along with SAGE Journals complying to Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) mechanism. Overall, the findings of the review showed that the integration of digital educational game brings positive impacts in English language education in terms of cognition and affection outcomes. For future research, it is recommended that more attention should be put on scrutinizing the pedagogical and assessment issues associated with digital game-based in English education.