Could the Player's Engagement in a Video Game Increase His/Her Interest in Science?

Our work is to analyze how the practice of chosen video games may influence the player's interest. A set of video games was selected by a group of experts according to their qualities as games and their relations with scientific knowledge. A focus test experiment has been set up to evaluate the correlation between teenagers engagement and their interest in scientific domains. The analysis of the results shows that the desire to pursue the game and the sentiment of responsibility has, respectively, a direct and an indirect influence on the player's scientific interest. Considering that interest is known to be an important motivational factor in learning, these results have important implications for the serious games design.