Abstract
Serious game has been introduced as an interactive tool to support teaching and learning. Serious game provides learning engagement, motivation, and constant feedback to improve the student’s problem-solving, analytical, logic and reasoning, planning and strategizing skills. These skills are aligned with the skills needed to learn computer programming subjects. However, implementing serious games for computer programming subjects is not easy. It needs to consider different factors such as the adaptability of the game, learning outcome, time and duration, and types of participation. This paper reviews three different implementations of a serious game, named WannaBee Coder, in subjects of IT students (and future students). WannaBee Coder is an educational adventure web-based game in which the student must fulfil an objective by successfully answering all the questions. The game is adaptive and can be implemented for different subjects without changing the codes. We evaluated the effectiveness of these three implementations in three main criteria, namely: participation rate, impact on performance, and student feedback. Based on the evaluation results, we found that serious games can help students improve their programming skills and can be used as an alternative approach to learn computer programming.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Barab, S., Gresalfi, M., & Ingram-Goble, A. (2010). Transformational play: Using games to position person, content, and context. Educational Researcher, 39(7), 525–536.
Butler, M., & Morgan, M. (2007). Learning challenges faced by novice programming students studying high level and low feedback concepts. ASCILITE Singapore.
Coelho, A., Kato, E., Xavier, J., & Gonçalves, R. (2011). Serious game for introductory programming. In International Conference on Serious Games Development and Applications, Lisbon, Portugal.
de Freitas, S., & Jarvis, S. (2008). Towards a development approach for serious games. In T. Connolly, M. Stansfield, & E. Boyle (Eds.), Games-based learning advancements for multi-sensory human-computer interfaces: Techniques and effective practices (pp. 215–231). IGI Global.
De Freitas, S., & Liarokapis, F. (2011). Serious games: A new paradigm for education? In Serious games and edutainment applications (pp. 9–23). Springer.
de Freitas, S., & Oliver, M. (2006). How can exploratory learning with games and simulations within the curriculum be most effectively evaluated? Computers & Education, 46(3), 249–264.
Eseryel, D., Law, V., Ifenthaler, D., Ge, X., & Miller, R. (2014). An investigation of the interrelationships between motivation, engagement, and complex problem solving in game-based learning. Journal of Educational Technology & Society, 17(1), 42–53.
Garcia-Ruiz, M., Tashiro, J., Kapralos, B., & Martin, M. (2011). Crouching tangents, hidden danger: Assessing development of dangerous misconceptions within serious games for healthcare education. In Gaming and simulations: Concepts, methodologies, tools and applications (pp. 1712–1749). Information Resources Management Association.
Gómez-RodrÃguez, A., González-Moreno, J., Ramos-Valcárcel, D., & Vázquez-López, L. (2011). Modeling serious games using AOSE methodologies. In 11th International Conference on Intelligent Systems Design and Applications (ISDA) (pp. 53–58). IEEE.
Graafland, M., Schraagen, J., & Schijven, M. (2012). Systematic review of serious games for medical education and surgical skills training. British Journal of Surgery, 99(10), 1322–1330.
Ismail, M., Ngah, N., & Umar, I. (2010). Instructional strategy in the teaching of computer programming: A need assessment analyses. TOJET: The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology, 9(2).
Lim, C., & Jung, H. (2013). A study on the military serious game. Advanced Science and Technology Letters, 39, 73–77.
Liu, Y., Alexandrova, T., & Nakajima, T. (2011). Gamifying intelligent environments. In Proceedings of the 2011 International ACM Workshop on Ubiquitous Meta User Interfaces, Scottsdale, Arizona.
Loh, C., Sheng, Y., Ifenthaler, D. (2015). Serious game analytics: Theoretical framework. In Serious game analytics: Methodologies for performance measurement, assessment and improvement (pp. 3–30). Springer.
Ma, M., Oikonomou, A., & Jain, L. (2011). Innovations in serious games for future learning. In Serious games and edutainment applications (pp. 3–7). Springer.
Muratet, M., Torguet, P., Jessel, J., & Viallet, F. (2009). Towards a serious game to help students learn computer programming. International Journal of Computer Games Technology.
Riedel, J., & Hauge, J. (2011). State of the art of serious games for business and industry. In 2011 17th International Conference on Concurrent Enterprising (ICE).
Sarpong, K., Arthur, J., & Amoako, P. (2013). Causes of failure of students in computer programming courses: The teacher-learner perspective. International Journal of Computer Applications, 77(12).
Shaffer, D., Squire, K., Halverson, R., & Gee, J. (2005). Video games and the future of learning. Phi Delta Kappan, 87(2), 105–111.
William, L. (2021). Improving students programming skills using serious games. In 14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education 2021, Turku, Finland.
William, L. (2022). Wannabee: Serious game analytics engine. [Online]. Retrieved September 6, 2023, from http://seriousgameanalytics.com/
William, L., Rahim, Z., Souza, R., Nugroho, E., & Fredericco, R. (2018). Extendable board game to facilitate learning in supply chain management. Advances in Science, Technology and Engineering Systems Journal, 3(4), 99–111.
William, L., & Yang, R. (2022). Using sentiment analytics to understand learner’s experience in serious game implementation. In Next-generation applications and implementations of gamification systems (pp. 145–165). IGI Global.
Wood, C., Mentzelopoulos, M., & Protopsaltis, A. (2015). EdCCDroid: An education pilot prototype for introducing code-combat using LUA. In The 11th International Conference on Intelligent Environments (Workshop), Prague.
Acknowledgements
This research is supported by the Temasek Polytechnic, under its Temasek Polytechnic Research Fund (TPRF) (14th Call).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2024 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
About this paper
Cite this paper
William, L. (2024). Implementing a Serious Game for Computer Programming Subjects. In: Hong, JC. (eds) New Technology in Education and Training. AEIT 2024. Lecture Notes in Educational Technology. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-97-3883-0_23
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-97-3883-0_23
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-97-4217-2
Online ISBN: 978-981-97-3883-0
eBook Packages: EducationEducation (R0)