An introduction of Prof. Huei-Tse Hou:

Dr. Hou is an expert in game-based learning, gamification for teaching, and learning behavioral analysis. In behavioral pattern analysis, Prof. Hou adopts quantitative content analysis, lag sequential analysis, and visualization of different learning behavioral patterns to explore learners’ complex learning process (e.g., collaborative problem-solving process) over a period of time. He also works on the development of innovative research methods. Prof. Hou has received many awards, including the Outstanding Research Award from the Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan in 2016; the Excellent Teacher Award from the Ministry of Education, Taiwan in 2018; the Ta-You Wu Memorial Award (for young outstanding scholars) from the Ministry of Science and Technology in 2010, and the Outstanding Research and Creation Award from NTUST many times.

Prof. Hou has more than 200 publications in the fields of education and technology, including more than 70 JCR-SSCI-indexed journal articles. He is also the editor of international scholar series and the editorial committee member and the reviewer of many international journals (including more than 25 SSCI journals). He has been invited to be the reviewer of many important international projects (e.g., by the Swiss National Science Foundation) and to give speeches in international conferences many times (e.g., International Conference on Computers in Education, ICCE).

In game-based learning, Prof. Hou has been developing many educational mini-games (including board games and digital games) and the editing environment (for teachers and students to develop their own games) based on cognitive learning theories. In gamification, Prof. Hou has proposed the “micro-flipped game-based learning model” and the “Card-game, Slide, and Learning Sheet gamification teaching model” to assist teaching, emphasizing the use of micro-autonomous gamification learning and scaffolding in teaching. In practice, Prof. Hou also promotes game-based learning, learning-based board games, and parent-children gamification learning in many primary and high schools and organizations. He has more than 20 industry-academia cooperation projects related to game-based learning, including the release of game-based learning products for school and industry trainings. Five educational board games has been successfully released in the market, and two of them have been the best sellers from their category on a single day on the Books shopping site, which shows a successful example of research applications. In terms of social influences, Prof. Hou’s research team adopts a bottom-up promotion method to build teacher communities and has shared ideas with tens of thousands of teachers in workshops nationwide more than 300 times, which were also reported by the media many times. The research team was invited by the biggest insurance industry in Taiwan for industry-academia cooperation, aiming to develop educational games for the training of thousands of employees in the company. Prof. Hou is an influential scholar in Taiwan, who applies games in flipped teaching based on theories and scientific analysis. In 2016, he published the book “micro-flipped gamed-based learning” as an important reference book and tool for readers to understand the idea of micro-flipped gamed-based learning model. This book was the second best seller from the curriculum and teaching method category on the Books’ online bookstore (2016/7/26).

In July 2018, Prof, Hou published the textbook “knowledge-based board game design” and this book has been gradually used by high school teachers in their featured curriculum. Prof. Hou is an important scholar, who has both academic output and industry-academia output in the field of digital learning in Taiwan. He also received the Excellent Teacher Award from the Ministry of Education in 2018 because of this innovative teaching research and his promotion of teaching in education.