Abstract:

Digital games have become an important part of children’s present-day culture, and yet they are rarely considered for their instructional benefits. Game features such as active participation, prompt feedback, challenging but achievable goals, and a mix of uncertainty and open-endedness contribute to motivation, one of the crucial elements of learning. Consequently, games for learning are the most likely next step. The use of games to educate through entertainment or fun has rapidly grown in the market. However, developing games for educational purposes is not just a matter of dumping content to some kind of games. One of the issues in the design of games for learning is how pedagogical objectives can be integrated into the game during design.

Subsequently, a high-fidelity game prototype, Math Explore, was designed and developed to demonstrate how to integrate pedagogical objectives in an educational game for learning Mathematics, covering curricula based on the United Kingdom’s National Curriculum Level 3 for years 7, 8 and 9. In Math Explore, players from the ages of 11 to 14, uses their mathematics knowledge to solve mathematical problems and equations. Players will visit different places, which have different activities that must be completed in order. Each activity has three levels of difficulty and covers essential mathematics skills, including basic mathematics operations such as addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, and the number systems, including fractions, decimals, logic problems, patterns and shapes. Findings from this study would be able to address some pedagogical and game design issues, in particular, how and when to integrate pedagogical objectives in a game for learning.

Keywords:

Game design, educational game, serious game, mathematics, game pedagogy.