Integrating console games into educational settingshas been increasingly both applauded and criticized. The vastinterest in game playing of people of all ages appears to be amotivating source for educators and trainers to find ways toeffectively integrate serious games into their educational set-tings in order to inspire their own students towards the contentthey are providing in their classrooms. In the past few years,the surge in the interest in using mobile devices in the class-room has followed a similar track to that of console games,perhaps because their constructs appear to mirror those foundin those console-based games. These similarities go beyondthe coincidental fact that many of the most popular mobileapps also happen to follow game-like patterns. For this reason,the authors suggest that the need exists to examine the educa-tional validity of the instructional apps that are beingdownloaded onto mobile devices using the same rationale thatwas previously extended in earlier studies. Using this premise,the researchers based their hypothesis that mobile apps canoffer a unique and facile means toBgamify^a classroom.Based on a review of the current state of affairs in commercialoff-the-shelf (OTS) apps, there may be too many on the mar-ket that profess to beBeducational^when, in fact, they do littleto actually support acquiring content knowledge. The authorssuggest that this possible overabundance has contributed tothe need to create a means for game designers to properlyand accurately evaluate in a formative way what contributionstheir games would potentially make to education and training.The current study focuses both evaluating the value of usingRETAIN for app designers to formatively assess their poten-tial constructs and to inform educators as to which apps bestmeet the instructional and student learning needs once thoseapps enter the market

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• Teachers' Assessment of the Instructional Efficacy of MobileApps: a Formative Case Study