GAMIFICATION WITH SOCIOCULTURAL RELEVANCE: DESIGNING A SERIOUS GAME BASED ON NUSANTARA FOLKLORE FOR HISTORY LEARNING

Conventional history education often struggles with student engagement due to pedagogical methods that lack interactivity and cultural resonance. While serious games offer a potential solution, many existing platforms use generic themes, failing to leverage the rich sociocultural context of learners, thereby limiting their educational impact. This research aims to design, develop, and evaluate a serious game for history learning by integrating Nusantara (Indonesian archipelago) folklore, creating a socioculturally relevant and immersive educational experience. Employing a Research and Development (R&D) approach with the ADDIE model, a prototype was developed and subsequently tested through a quasi-experiment with high school students to assess its impact on historical knowledge acquisition and engagement. The study resulted in a functional serious game where historical events are framed within compelling narratives from Nusantara folklore. Experimental results showed a statistically significant improvement in learning outcomes and higher engagement scores for the group using the folklore-based game compared to a control group using conventional learning methods. Integrating socioculturally relevant elements like folklore into serious games is a highly effective strategy for history education, enhancing both academic achievement and cultural appreciation, and offering a robust model for contextualized gamified learning.