The relationship between the development of 21st-century skills and game-based learning is a field to explore. Among the 21-st century skills, critical thinking is one of the most analyzed skills. This study aims to deepen the relationship between learning and disposition to critical thinking (DCT) in the context of Serious Games (SGs). In particular, starting from the evidence of previous work, that highlighted a positive effect of the DCT on game performance, this study analyzes how the DCT also affects the explicit learning gained by the players. This work highlights that the DCT has a crucial role in explicit knowledge acquisition and how the improvement of game performance is a direct consequence of DCT through a path analysis methodology.

中文翻译：

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批判性思维在基于数字游戏的学习中的作用

21世纪技能的发展与基于游戏的学习之间的关系是一个值得探索的领域。在21世纪的技能中，批判性思维是分析最多的技能之一。这项研究的目的是在严肃游戏（SGs）的背景下加深学习与批判性思维（DCT）之间的关系。特别是，从先前工作的证据（突出显示DCT对游戏性能的积极影响）开始，本研究分析了DCT如何影响玩家获得的显式学习。这项工作强调了DCT在显式知识获取中起着至关重要的作用，并且通过路径分析方法，提高游戏性能是DCT的直接结果。