Although research directly examining SGs for enhancing adolescents’ IA remains limited, their educational effectiveness has been widely demonstrated across diverse learning contexts [27,28].

Meta-analytic evidence indicates that SGs enhance cognitive performance while simultaneously promoting positive emotions and well-being during learning. Empirical studies further show that SGs improve academic achievement and learning motivation across disciplines such as science, language learning, and business education [29,30].

Beyond cognitive outcomes, SGs also support the development of soft skills. For example, the SG FLIGBY has been shown to foster leadership, conflict resolution, and critical thinking, highlighting the role of SGs in holistic skill development [31]. Compared with traditional instructional approaches, SGs offer greater flexibility and learner autonomy, aligning well with contemporary educational needs and contributing to more positive learning attitudes [28,32]. Collectively, these findings establish SGs as an effective and versatile educational tool, providing a strong foundation for their application in promoting adolescents’ IA.

As adolescents face increasingly complex digital environments, SGs offer particular advantages due to their educational orientation, immersive contexts, and interactive design. Although direct empirical evidence remains limited, existing studies suggest several pathways through which SGs may support IA.

In the preparation stage of IA, SGs primarily support adolescents in building foundational internet knowledge and skills while cultivating constructive attitudes toward digital environments. These early cognitive and affective structures form the basis for subsequent adaptive behaviors.

Adolescents need to develop a positive internet attitude, including cognitive, emotional, and behavioral tendencies, which influence responsible online behavior [34,35]. Simultaneously, internet knowledge and skills, such as information search, online communication, and cybersecurity practices, are essential for online activities [1]. These constructs interact: a positive attitude motivates learning, while improved skills strengthen engagement and perception of the internet [36].

SGs are well positioned to facilitate this preparatory learning process. Their immersive, interactive, and narrative-rich environments enable learners to construct initial cognitive frameworks about the online world [32]. By integrating technology, pedagogy, and interactive mechanisms [37], these games provide contextualized learning experiences that make abstract concepts concrete and engaging [38]. From the perspective of schema theory, such contextualized learning environments are particularly effective for supporting the formation and refinement of cognitive schema [39]. Schemas function as early cognitive structures that organize new information, shape expectations, and influence attitudes. Some studies emphasize that learners encode and organize information more efficiently when it is embedded in meaningful, situational contexts that can be connected to prior knowledge [40-42]. Contextualized learning allows adolescents to connect new information to prior knowledge, promoting deeper understanding and stable orientations toward online environments.

Observational learning further reinforces early learning. According to Bandura’s social cognitive theory, individuals acquire knowledge, attitudes, and behavioral strategies by attending to models and evaluating the consequences of their actions [43]. This process is supported by four subprocesses (attention, retention, reproduction, and motivation), which together determine how modeled behaviors are internalized [43]. Within SGs, these subprocesses are activated through designed modeling features. For example, non-player characters, scripted demonstrations, or peer-like avatars provide examples of digital norms, information-seeking strategies, and responses to common online dilemmas [21]. Empirical studies indicate that observing modeled responses in interactive digital environments can improve learners’ ability to identify risks [23], foster more prosocial online attitudes [44,45], and support the development of normative expectations for digital interactions [46].

During the preparation stage, observational learning shapes early cognitive and affective orientations. Modeled experiences provide structured exposure to desirable online behaviors, allowing adolescents to internalize norms before independently navigating online environments.

Through the integrated mechanisms of schema formation and observational learning, SGs provide a safe, immersive learning environment. This enables adolescents to effectively construct internet knowledge and skills, cultivate a positive attitude, and actively explore the online environment, thereby laying a solid cognitive and affective foundation for the development of robust IA.

Beyond mastering internet skills, adolescents need a sense of control over the online environment. During adaptation, SGs help develop this psychological control and enhance self-efficacy, fostering confidence in handling online challenges.

Sense of control refers to one’s belief in influencing outcomes, and this is a crucial factor in environmental adaptation [47]. Adolescents with higher control perceptions show greater agency and more positive evaluations of their abilities and influence on external events [48,49]. This perception is closely linked to self-efficacy, as believing in one’s influence over outcomes enhances confidence in personal capabilities [50]. In a rapidly evolving digital space, adolescents with stronger control perceptions are more resilient to challenges. SGs, with their immersive and risk-free environments, allow adolescents to explore cyberspace, reinforcing their psychological control and self-efficacy.

Feedback mechanisms and progress visualization are central to this process. In SGs, players receive immediate feedback for their actions, which strengthens their sense of control and helps establish a sense of order in digital environments. When unexpected outcomes occur, such as errors, timely prompts and guidance support the acquisition of internet knowledge and skills [51]. Through iterative trial and error, adolescents refine internet skills, ultimately applying them with confidence in real life.

SGs also provide structured environments that support the accumulation of mastery experiences, the most influential source of self-efficacy according to Bandura [43]. Research confirms that robust internet knowledge and experience significantly boost self-efficacy [52]. Therefore, SGs, by providing simulated online environments, allow adolescents to accumulate mastery experiences as they complete tasks, effectively strengthening their sense of online control and self-efficacy. Additionally, SGs set challenging tasks and achievement systems that gradually enhance players’ self-efficacy. In these games, players overcome a series of challenges, complete tasks, and receive rewards, and these positive experiences further enhance their self-efficacy [53]. When adolescents perceive their abilities and accomplishments in the online space, they are more likely to transfer this confidence and motivation to real life, facing challenges in the online environment with greater composure.

In summary, SGs enhance IA through scenario simulations, real-time feedback, and achievement systems. They strengthen adolescents’ sense of control and self-efficacy, equipping them to navigate the digital world with confidence and resilience.

In the sustained adaptation stage, SGs consolidate earlier learning and support the transfer of in-game experiences to real-world online contexts, reinforcing adolescents’ self-regulation, control, resilience, and proactive engagement.

SGs use scenario-based instructional design to promote learning transfer, defined as the application of acquired knowledge and skills to new situations [54]. Contextualization involves embedding learning content within a scenario that closely mirrors real-world situations or practical problems [1]. Constructivist theory emphasizes that transfer depends on the alignment between learning contexts and real-world application contexts [55,56], a principle operationalized in SGs through realistic online simulations. For instance, cybersecurity games place players in expert roles, requiring them to manage cyberattacks and digital threats, thereby strengthening practical skill acquisition [57]. Activity theory further suggests that knowledge transfer efficiency depends on how well virtual activities align with real-world contexts [58]. Accordingly, the high contextual similarity between SGs and authentic online environments facilitates the efficient application of in-game learning to real-life digital situations.

Beyond supporting transfer, SGs offer scalable and flexible learning opportunities. Unlike traditional educational models, they do not depend on continuous teacher guidance or fixed learning spaces. Learners can engage in game-based learning activities at their own pace and according to their personal schedules, significantly enhancing learning continuity, flexibility, and autonomy [18]. Additionally, SGs can be updated in real time to reflect emerging technologies and online risks, ensuring that adolescents’ knowledge and skills remain aligned with evolving digital environments [22,23]. By transforming from static tools into dynamic platforms, SGs adapt to the ever-changing online landscape, offering a deeper and more practical experience to enhance IA.

In sum, by combining contextualized simulation, flexible access, and continuous updating, SGs support the sustained development of adolescents’ IA and promote durable, transferable learning outcomes.

SGs enhance adolescents’ IA not only through the distinct functions of preparation, adaptation, and sustained adaptation, but also through their cyclical and progressive integration. Together, these stages form a dynamic learning mechanism that supports continuous reflection, application, and long-term adaptability.

Self-regulated learning (SRL) theory helps explain this process. Zimmerman [59] conceptualizes SRL as a cycle of planning, monitoring, and reflection that enables learners to regulate their behavior through goal setting, process evaluation, and experience review [53]. These processes align closely with the 3 stages of IA. In the preparation stage, SGs stimulate motivation and initiate the planning phase by encouraging adolescents to set learning goals, such as improving information search or cybersecurity awareness. In the adaptation stage, games support monitoring and strategy adjustment through immediate feedback and adaptive task design, requiring learners to apply prior knowledge in increasingly complex situations [59]. This iterative practice enhances focus, strengthens psychological control, and promotes self-efficacy. In the sustained adaptation stage, SGs consolidate learning outcomes through task progression and knowledge transfer. Reflection becomes especially prominent, as summary modules and performance tracking support evaluation of learning strategies and outcomes [60].

Across these stages, SGs create a spiral learning process. Goal setting in preparation lays the foundation for practice, experiences in adaptation deepen understanding, and reflection in sustained adaptation initiates the next learning cycle [59]. By integrating SRL processes with progressive game design, SGs not only enhance adolescents’ current IA but also cultivate long-term SRL abilities. These skills enable adolescents to continually update and apply knowledge in an evolving digital environment, supporting sustained adaptability.

Clear goal definition is the foundational principle of IA-oriented SG design, as without explicit objectives, embedded mechanisms cannot reliably translate into meaningful learning outcomes. Within the SRL theory, the clear and specific goals guide learners’ reflection, evaluation, and behavioral regulation throughout the learning process [67]. Constructivist learning theory similarly emphasizes defining the instructional theme for overall design and each unit [67]. However, some designers adopt existing game types without aligning them to specific educational goals, risking misalignment [18,68].

In the context of IA, goal clarity is particularly critical. IA comprises 8 core dimensions [1]: attitude, online knowledge and skills, sense of control, self-efficacy, adaptability, self-control, psychological resilience, and proactivity. These dimensions differ in importance across developmental stages: the preparation stage emphasizes attitudes and foundational skills, whereas the adaptation stage prioritizes sense of control and self-efficacy [1]. Accordingly, game objectives should be sequenced to reflect these developmental priorities.

Additionally, objectives must match adolescents’ cognitive development. Overly complex or insufficiently scaffolded goals can increase cognitive load and hinder schema formation [69,70]. Finally, objectives should also be measurable to support progress monitoring. Standardized tests, surveys, and in-game analytics allow developers and educators to track learning and refine design [19]. Measurable goals also reinforce the SRL cycle by enabling players to compare current performance with desired outcomes and adjust strategies accordingly.

In sum, clear goal definition is not merely an administrative step; it operationalizes the psychological mechanisms underlying IA, transforming abstract adaptability constructs into actionable design elements that provide structural guidance for all subsequent design principles.

Following clear goal definition, interaction diversity is the second major principle in IA-oriented SG design. While it supports all 3 stages of IA, its psychological functions align most closely with the preparation stage, where adolescents develop foundational knowledge, constructive attitudes, and early exploratory confidence [1]. Interaction diversity refers to offering multiple meaningful ways to engage with digital content, encouraging learners to interpret and respond to online situations from different perspectives [21,71]. It functions not merely as an interface feature but as a mechanism for deepening cognitive processing, activating schemas, and strengthening early adaptive dispositions.

Varied interactions encourage adolescents to move beyond passive exposure and instead engage in increasingly elaborated cycles of exploration, interpretation, and decision-making [21]. Narrative-driven interactions, for instance, allow learners to engage with unfolding digital events in ways that highlight causality and perspective-taking [20]. Such narrative encounters support the activation and restructuring of social-cognitive schemas, enabling adolescents to develop more nuanced expectations regarding online behavior, interpersonal dynamics, and risk cues [22-24]. Procedural interactions, such as simulated online operations or information-handling tasks, enable the formation of procedural knowledge through repeated practice [23-25], while reinforcing early perceptions of competence and control. Socially oriented interactions situate learners within conversational or collaborative exchanges, modeling constructive digital communication and promoting empathy, negotiation, and responsible participation [45]. Reflective interactions, including prompts and consequence-based feedback, encourage learners to examine action outcomes, strengthening metacognitive monitoring and early risk evaluation [21,63]. Such reflective engagements are especially valuable in the preparation stage, where adolescents are forming their earliest internal standards for online judgment and behavior.

Taken together, interaction diversity enables adolescents to engage with digital scenarios through narrative, procedural, social, and reflective pathways, supporting early IA while laying the cognitive and affective foundation for later adaptation and sustained functioning.

Building on interaction diversity, contextual authenticity is a key principle for SGs enhancing adolescents’ IA. Learning in environments resembling real digital contexts helps learners perceive the relevance of skills and decisions [72]. In such authentic scenarios, adolescents engage in experiential learning: they encounter realistic problems, make decisions, observe consequences, and reflect on outcomes [73,74]. This cycle of action, feedback, and reflection fosters mastery experiences, a primary source of self-efficacy [43,72,73], which in turn supports proactive coping and adaptive decision-making in real online environments [75].

However, far transfer from low-risk game settings to high-stakes real-world situations is often limited [63,65]. Realistic scenarios alone do not guarantee effective application of game-learned strategies. To bridge this gap, SGs should include structured scaffolding that supports cognitive and metacognitive transfer [76]. Increasing in-game task complexity and emotional demands allows learners to practice under conditions closer to real digital pressures [77]. This exposure strengthens stress tolerance and decision stability, allowing adolescents to form resilient strategy–response mappings that can generalize beyond the game. Simultaneously, the metacognitive prompts and reflective exercises encourage learners to articulate their reasoning, examine potential biases, and connect in-game experiences with real life [63]. This process transforms gameplay experiences into conceptual knowledge, an essential condition for far transfer, which requires that learners not merely remember actions but understand underlying mechanisms [60]. Embedding negative feedback or conflict scenarios trains emotion regulation while maintaining effective decision-making [78]. Moreover, exposure to multiple roles and scenarios across digital contexts reinforces strategy application and consolidation, increasing the likelihood of successful transfer [45,66].

In this way, contextual authenticity, when supported by structured scaffolding, functions not merely as a realistic setting but as an integrated mechanism that deepens comprehension, strengthens self-efficacy, and facilitates the flexible application of adaptive strategies.

In addition to the diversity and authenticity of interaction processes, the results of each interaction are equally important for improving adolescents’ learning experience and motivation in SGs [58]. In SGs focused on IA, feedback should be immediate, explanatory, and scaffolded according to developmental stages, directly fostering adaptive self-efficacy, a strong sense of control, and metacognitive regulation [43,79]. Effective feedback establishes a transparent loop between digital behaviors and their consequences, allowing adolescents to rapidly form accurate mental models of online causal relationships [80].

To cultivate adaptability, feedback must go beyond correctness judgments and act as a dynamic scaffold. During the preparation stage, feedback should be highly supportive and formative, linking actions to positive outcomes to reinforce initial schemata and build foundational confidence [81,82]. For example, successfully verifying a website might trigger feedback that affirms the behavior and explains how it enhances digital safety [83]. As learners progress into adaptation and sustained adaptation stages, feedback should increasingly include corrective and explanatory components following not optimal choices. By simulating plausible negative outcomes and providing guided analysis, these interventions transform errors into low-stakes mastery experiences, a process that is critical for developing resilience and flexible problem-solving skills [84]. From the perspective of self-efficacy theory, these scaffolded feedback cycles are the engine for generating mastery experiences, the source of confidence in managing digital challenges [57,82]. Crucially, by explaining the “why” behind both successes and failures, feedback fosters metacognitive awareness, enabling adolescents to understand not only what to do but how to think about digital situations [63]. This lays the foundation for self-regulation and the strategic transfer of skills to new, real-world online contexts [74].

In sum, this principle redefines feedback from a mere informational tool to a key driver of adaptive psychological development, with in-game interaction contributing to both skill acquisition and the cultivation of beliefs and self-regulatory capacities that sustain long-term IA.

The principles of clear goals, contextual authenticity, interaction diversity, and immediate feedback provide the framework for game-based learning [85]. To extend this foundation into sustainable adaptability, IA-oriented games should function as dynamically adaptive learning environments, operating at both content and individualized learner levels.

At the content level, dynamic adaptability ensures that the game continually integrates new digital challenges reflecting emerging norms, technologies, and risks [86,87]. Rather than presenting fixed modules, the game introduces novel scenarios over time, supporting repeated experiential learning and adaptive transfer [60]. Updates act as pedagogical extensions of emerging digital realities. For example, modules may present artificial intelligence (AI)–related challenges, such as identifying deepfake content, evaluating algorithmically curated information, or managing interactions with AI-driven platforms, helping adolescents respond to evolving online risks [87]. As players confront these tasks, they are encouraged to revisit earlier strategies, refine their understanding, and rebuild adaptive approaches. This iterative process strengthens metacognitive awareness, self-regulation, and resilience [88,89]. Embedded assessments can further personalize progression by adjusting difficulty or focus based on performance, cognitive style, or competencies. For example, a player who excels in online communication but lacks cybersecurity skills may receive additional tasks focused on privacy management or digital ethics [90].

At the individual level, dynamic adaptability is supported through an intuitive and well-organized interface that matches learners’ cognitive habits and operational routines [70,91]. Such design reduces extraneous cognitive load and enables learners to concentrate on meaningful problem-solving rather than procedural navigation. By lowering technical barriers and offering clear guidance, the interface functions as a scaffold that facilitates efficient information processing, responsible decision-making, and reflective engagement [92,93]. When combined with dynamically evolving content, this learner-centered support helps players apply adaptive strategies in real time and internalize the self-regulatory and metacognitive skills required for navigating complex digital environments.

In sum, the principle highlights how SGs can integrate evolving content with accessible, learner-centered design. This dual adaptability nurtures reflective, self-regulated, and transferable skills, equipping adolescents with the cognitive and behavioral capacities needed for sustainable IA.

While the preceding principles focus on fostering motivation, cognitive engagement, and effective skill acquisition, Safety-by-Design ensures that the learning environment itself does not inadvertently reproduce the addictive or compulsive engagement patterns associated with negative forms of internet use [94]. Adolescents are particularly sensitive to reward-seeking cues, variable reinforcement schedules, and emotionally arousing feedback structures, all of which can amplify screen fixation or habitual checking behaviors [95]. To counter these risks, safety-by-design establishes boundaries that promote regulated, purposeful engagement rather than hedonic immersion. For instance, gameplay cycles are intentionally time-bounded and punctuated by reflective pauses that encourage players to monitor their internal states, evaluate the usefulness of the strategies they are using, and recognize the distinction between intentional learning and habitual digital consumption [96]. Moreover, the reinforcement mechanisms embedded in the game prioritize informational over affective feedback: success is communicated through clarity of consequences, improvement indicators, or strategy-relevant insights rather than through escalating stimuli such as points, streaks, or attention-grabbing animations [97]. By avoiding variable structures and other persuasive design elements known to increase compulsive use [98], the game models a healthier digital ecology that aligns with the broader objective of cultivating adaptive self-regulation.

Additionally, Safety-by-Design further supports IA by fostering metacognitive awareness of one’s digital habits [96]. While the structural boundaries of the game help reduce the likelihood of compulsive use, the next step is enabling adolescents to understand and actively manage their own digital habits. Break reminders, self-assessment checkpoints, and reflective prompts, which have been shown to foster self-regulation and transfer in digital learning environments [63,96]. These opportunities for reflection help adolescents identify moments when online interactions may compromise their well-being and consider how the strategies practiced in the game could inform their responses in everyday digital contexts.

Together, the structural safeguards and metacognitive supports enable Safety-by-Design to move beyond simply preventing harmful engagement, actively fostering adolescents’ self-regulation and reflective capacities for adaptive, intentional, and sustainable digital behavior.