JMIR Serious Games

Despite science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields driving socioeconomic development and career prospects, they continue to struggle with low enrollment and high dropout rates. An important predictor of academic performance and career persistence is self-efficacy, which is the belief in one’s ability to succeed. Research indicates that collaboration improves learning outcomes and is associated with improved STEM motivation. Computational thinking (CT) is also increasingly valued in STEM education due to its reliance on computational tools and problem-solving processes. Early exposure to STEM content in a child’s educational journey may thus be a key opportunity for shaping their STEM self-efficacy and future career path.

Early bystander cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and prompt defibrillation are key determinants of survival after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, and school-based adult basic life support (BLS) education is a high-impact public health strategy. However, scalability and standardized assessment remain challenging. Gamified digital environments may sustain engagement while enabling comparable, rubric-based evaluation of learning artifacts. Few evaluations have examined whether a fully online gamified platform can support large-scale school-based adult BLS participation while generating standardized class-level artifacts for structured assessment.

Alzheimer disease (AD) is increasingly conceptualized as a disorder of large-scale brain network disruption rather than isolated regional dysfunction. Immersive virtual reality (VR) may provide a controlled sensory challenge for neurophysiological assessment, but its association with whole-brain electroencephalography (EEG) functional network organization across AD and mild cognitive impairment (MCI) remains insufficiently characterized.

Adolescents and young adults account for a disproportionate number of new HIV diagnoses in the United States due to missed opportunities for education, testing, and prevention.

Immersive virtual reality (IVR) is increasingly used for task training. Adjusting sensory and cognitive complexity to individual capacity is important for effective training, yet it remains unclear how varying visual, auditory, and cognitive demands influence behavioral responses, physiological activity, and task performance during goal-directed activities in IVR.

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a common neurodevelopmental disorder in children, characterized by inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity that significantly disrupt daily functioning. Comprehensive ADHD assessment requires multimethod and multi-informant evaluation, and objective attention measures can complement this process. Serious game–based assessments may further support this process by combining structured task mechanics and dynamic audiovisual guidance in a child-oriented digital environment.

Patient education is central to orthodontic care; however, most patients still learn about their malocclusion from conventional records, such as 2D image records. Immersive virtual reality (VR) allows patients to view and manipulate 3D dental models in a head-tracked environment, as part of the serious-games and extended reality family for health education. Evidence on patient-facing immersive VR in orthodontics remains limited, as most dental VR work has addressed student training rather than patient education.

Traditional neuropsychological assessments often lack ecological validity and have limited sensitivity for detecting executive dysfunction (ED) in daily life. Although grounded in standardized tasks, they do not represent the complexity of real-world contexts. Serious games (SGs) have emerged as a promising approach by simulating ecologically valid environments involving dynamic, emotional, and socially embedded interactions.

Hemiplegic cerebral palsy (CP) commonly affects upper-limb function in children and may limit functional use of the affected arm and hand. Virtual reality (VR)–based rehabilitation can provide interactive, feedback-based, and task-oriented practice, but whether adding VR-based intervention to conventional therapy provides additional benefits remains uncertain. Previous reviews have often included broader CP populations, mixed comparators, or broad upper-limb outcome labels, limiting domain-specific interpretation.

Adults with mobility impairments have limited opportunities for physical activity due to environmental barriers and lack of accessible exercise options. Active video games (AVGs) have shown promise for increasing physical activity by integrating movement into engaging gameplay. However, most commercial AVG controllers are not usable by those with severe mobility limitations. The GAIMplank is a novel adaptive game controller that translates trunk movements into gameplay, addressing this accessibility gap and enabling seated participation for individuals with limited lower-extremity function.

Alexithymia, characterized by difficulty identifying, describing, and expressing emotions, is prevalent among Chinese college students. Traditional art therapies face barriers, such as high psychological thresholds and limited accessibility. Accessible, low-threshold digital tools are needed to help address this challenge. Coloring the Emoji, a coloring-based serious game designed as a digital art therapy, offers a low-threshold tool to support emotion regulation for this population.

Soft skills are increasingly assessed in human resources, but commonly used methods (eg, interviews and self-report questionnaires) have well-known limitations. Serious games have been proposed as a complementary assessment format because they can standardize administration, embed assessment in interactive scenarios, and capture behavioral traces. However, evidence for their psychometric validity remains limited and heterogeneous. Establishing convergent validity against well-established reference instruments is a key step in supporting their use as assessment tools.