Game-based orientation days support first-year wellbeing
Updated Aug 22, 2026
An orientation day can leave new students informed yet still uneasy about whether they belong. A study of 1,850 students suggests interactive design can support both jobs: conveying essential information and strengthening wellbeing through the first weeks. In Active Learning in Higher Education, Lize Vanderstraeten, Evelien Opdecam and Patricia Everaert compare lecture-based and game-based orientation in "Lost in Transition? How Orientation Days Make a Difference for the Well-Being of First-Year Students". For UK universities, the paper adds an important qualification to evidence on welcome-week attendance and peer belonging: participation matters, but the experience students have when they participate matters too.
Context and research question
Universities ask welcome activities to do a great deal in very little time. New starters need practical information, academic orientation, social connection, and confidence that support will be available when problems emerge. Yet institutions often judge induction through attendance or a same-day satisfaction item, even though transition feedback needs social, academic and emotional context to show whether students are settling in.
Vanderstraeten, Opdecam and Everaert ask whether the format of orientation changes what students take from it. They compare a conventional lecture-based day with a game-based day deliberately designed around principles for student wellbeing. Cross-sectional survey data from 1,850 students captured wellbeing and feeling informed on the orientation day and three weeks later. The design therefore tests two outcomes that universities can too easily treat as substitutes: whether students know what they need to know, and whether welcome helps them feel able to begin university life well.
Key findings
The game-based orientation day supported student wellbeing more effectively than the lecture-based format. This is the paper's central result. It suggests that induction can shape more than immediate satisfaction with an event. How students encounter peers, activities, and the university environment can affect the emotional conditions in which they start studying.
The authors summarise the comparison directly:
"more effective in supporting well-being than the lecture-based orientation day"
The wellbeing gain did not require an information trade-off. Students in the game-based format felt at least as well informed as those who attended the lecture-based day. That matters because universities may default to presentation-heavy induction on the assumption that efficient information delivery is the safest priority. The findings suggest a more participatory format can preserve that practical function while doing more to support students' transition.
Measuring again after three weeks strengthens the institutional relevance of the study. A same-day evaluation can capture novelty, enjoyment, or relief that registration is complete. A later check asks whether the experience still relates to how students are coping once teaching, travel, workload, and peer relationships become real. The paper therefore supports a wider lesson from research on what new students need to feel they belong and stay well: early experience should be evaluated across several connected domains and more than one moment.
Intentional design matters more than the label "game-based". The intervention was built around wellbeing principles rather than adding competition or novelty for its own sake. The useful takeaway is not that every university needs games during welcome. It is that orientation should give students active ways to navigate the environment, encounter other people, and build confidence while receiving essential information.
Practical implications
First, UK universities should evaluate welcome twice rather than relying on an end-of-day score. Ask about wellbeing and informedness immediately, then repeat a short pulse check two or three weeks into term. Include an open question such as "What from welcome has helped you settle in, and what still feels unclear?" This separates first-day enthusiasm from support that remains useful once students face the ordinary pressures of study.
Second, teams should design interaction around a clear transition purpose. Activities can help students find a teaching room, practise using a support route, meet someone on their course, or solve a realistic first-week problem together. The paper does not show that gamification works automatically, so each activity should make a necessary part of transition easier rather than merely make the timetable livelier. This gives students practical rehearsal and human contact at the same time.
Third, institutions should compare how different groups experience the same orientation design. Mature, commuting, international, disabled, and first-generation students may face different barriers to attending or benefiting from a highly social day. Segmenting early survey results and analysing open comments can reveal whether a format that looks successful overall is leaving particular groups less informed, less connected, or less able to access support. This helps teams design welcome around the actual cohort rather than an imagined typical student.
Finally, universities should pair outcome measures with comments that explain the mechanism. Wellbeing and informedness scores can show that two formats differ, but open text can show whether the difference comes from peer contact, clearer navigation, staff approachability, pace, accessibility, or something else. Student Voice Analytics fits naturally here because it can categorise early-term comments consistently across programmes and cohorts, using the same principles set out in our open-text analysis methodology. That gives Student Experience teams evidence they can route to induction, academic schools, support services, or estates before the next intake arrives.
FAQ
Q: How can a university apply these findings to its next welcome programme?
A: Define two or three outcomes before designing the timetable, including wellbeing and feeling informed. Build active tasks around real first-week needs, then collect the same short measures on the day and after two or three weeks. Add one open-text prompt so students can explain which parts helped and where uncertainty remains.
Q: Does this study prove that game-based orientation causes better wellbeing everywhere?
A: No. The published abstract describes a comparative study using cross-sectional survey data from 1,850 students in a Belgian university context. It reports the direction of the findings but not enough detail to treat the result as a universal causal estimate. UK teams should use the study as a strong reason to test interactive orientation locally, with consistent measures, subgroup analysis, and a follow-up point.
Q: What does the paper change about student voice during transition?
A: It shifts the question from "Did students enjoy welcome?" to "Did welcome help students begin well, and did that support last into term?" Student voice is more useful when institutions measure practical understanding and wellbeing together, then use comments to explain why experiences differ. That produces clearer evidence for changing induction than a single satisfaction score.
References
[Paper Source]: Lize Vanderstraeten, Evelien Opdecam and Patricia Everaert "Lost in Transition? How Orientation Days Make a Difference for the Well-Being of First-Year Students" DOI: 10.1177/14697874261433244
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