103584003 張沛騰 Exploring the Factors Influencing Learning Effectiveness in Digital Game-based Learning

Exploring the Factors Influencing Learning Effectiveness in Digital Game-based Learning

Educational Technology & Society, 15 (3), 240–250. Tsai, F.-H., Yu, K.-C., & Hsiao, H.-S. (2012).

The main aim of this case study was to investigate the learning effectiveness of knowledge acquisition after playing Super Delivery and to discover the reasons why differences in the effectiveness of knowledge acquisition exist, by analyzing the cases’ characteristics and their learning behaviors.

 Participants

Prior knowledge was defined as the last semester’s mathematics and science grade, since playing Super Delivery need to make use of the arithmetic ability and to learn the science knowledge.

 

Game and instrument

This paper constructed a multiplayer educational game targeting five important knowledge concepts appropriate for sixthgrade students: (1) sources of energy; (2) sources of electricity; (3) conductors and insulators; (4) electric power rate; and (5) electricity cost. First, this paper selected the role playing game (RPG) style and two types of interactive learning techniques, including task-based learning and drill practice.

 

The interface of this game consists of one window split into three frames (see Figure 1). In the left frame, players can see and control their own avatar’s movement in the game scene, and game messages are displayed automatically when players trigger certain events or objects, as well as personal scores and equipment attained. In the right frame, players can see all the game function buttons, such as giving fast-food to someone, picking up the new equipment, checking the hall of fame, or inputting text to interact with others. The game map for displaying players’ positions in the game also is included in the right frame.

 

When a player moves his avatar into a charging station or quiz station, the right frame will also provide an area for inputting the charging cost, displaying random multiple-choice questions, or browsing the learning content about the five important knowledge concepts mentioned above, as shown in Figure 2. In the bottom frame, there is an area for displaying players’ personal messages such as the chat history.

To understand whether Super Delivery promoted learning, a performance test for evaluating the study participants’ effectiveness of knowledge acquisition was necessary. Therefore, based on the learning goals of the game, this paper developed a paper-based performance test. The test was composed of 5 multiple-choice (MC) items and 5 constructed-response (CR) items. The MC items measured the five important factual knowledge mentioned above.

Results

David learned the concept of electric power after playing Super Delivery, since his initial reaction was just guessing when he faced the similar question in game’s quiz stations. However, he forgot the unit of electrical energy, since he got the correct answer of the same question in the performance test. In addition to David, Jenny, Lisa and Allen also confused the unit of electrical energy with the unit of electric power. It was also found that Nancy and Peter had misconceptions when calculating the electricity cost on the performance test. According to the results of the performance test and interviews, this paper classified students’ practical effectiveness of knowledge acquisition into three levels – high, middle, and low (see Table 1).

It was found that students had three key gaming behaviors when interacting with the game: (1) learning motivation to seriously learn new knowledge; (2) learning ability to successfully understand new knowledge; and (3) playing skill to solve game problems.

Based on these results, a decision tree was constructed, as shown in Figure 4, to describe why differences in the effectiveness of knowledge acquisition existed among the study participants, and to include likely outcomes of learning effectiveness which did not happen to our participants.

Conclusion

The direct determinant of performance on knowledge acquisition in DGBL could be if a student simultaneously possesses learning motivation to learn new knowledge in the game, learning ability to successfully understand new knowledge in the game, and playing skill to successfully complete the game’s task. Also, it was found that the students’ learning motivation about learning new knowledge in the game was negatively affected by their playing motivation in DGBL; students’ learning ability about successfully understanding new knowledge in the game was positively affected by their prior

knowledge; students’ playing skill about successfully completing the game’s task was positively affected by their previous online game experience. Hence, these could be the factors indirectly influencing the effectiveness of knowledge acquisition in DGBL.

Future studies

First, to examine the accuracy of this study, future studies could increase the number of samples by quantitative methods such as structural equation modeling, or conduct more in-field experiments to inspect if the other representative games also lead to the same casual map shown in Figure 3.

Second, to derive more useful casual map or decision tree for understanding the effectiveness of DGBL, more factors should be taken into account in the future. As mentioned before, the components of learning ability that affect students’ performance in acquiring knowledge in DGBL need to be explored further. The factors in terms of different game type or different ages of audience also should be considered circumspectly when exploring the factors influencing the effectiveness of DGBL.

Finally, a revision of Super Delivery based on the findings of this study can be created and then compared with the original version.