Abstract:

To date, game-based learning and the application of ‘serious’ video games in the classroom is considered to be a promising approach to better educate the present and future generations of pupils and students. Educational games are expected to have a considerable learning potential as they hold the promise of being able to motivate students, promote non-rote learning and teach students to cope with ill-structured problems. Because the next generations of students will be “digital natives”, having different learning attitudes, skills and preferences, these students will likely benefit the most from the learning potential of educational games.

Since research has shown that pupils (and in particular male pupils) game frequently in their spare time, it might be expected that they will be rather positive towards the use of gaming in the classroom. In order to verify such expectations and to understand possible barriers and enablers of game-based learning, we surveyed 1028 pupils. The survey was administered in several Belgian schools, and it is a part of the G4-project (“Gimme, Gimme, Gimme a Game”) of the educational department of the “KHLIM”, a university-college in Limburg, Belgium. This three-year project mainly aims at (i) stimulating (future) teachers to apply and integrate educational games into their lectures, and (ii) offering them suitable learning strategies in order to increase learning outcomes.

The survey is an essential step to gain a deeper insight into the behaviors, attitudes and preferences of secondary school pupils. Next to some demographical and educational characteristics, we measured several factors such as: gaming frequency, attitudes towards video games in general, the perceived ease of use and usefulness of educational games, their perceived learning potential, and the respondents’ educational gaming preference. Most of the concepts are derived from the pedagogical literature, as well as the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM).

The results show that only a very limited number of pupils have some experience with game-based learning. Although pupils are rather positive towards video games, their scores on perceived usefulness of educational games, perceived learning potential of games, and gaming preference is surprisingly more neutral than might be expected. Scores on perceived ease of use are significantly higher. Statistical tests mainly indicate significant and serious gender differences in most concepts; with male respondents being more favorable to gaming.

By means of an explanatory model (validated with Partial Least Squares regression) some relationships between variables are discussed and some explanations for the gender differences are given. It is further shown that perceived usefulness and learning potential are important determinants of the pupils’ preferences for the use of video games in the classroom. These and other findings may have valuable implications for the deployment of game-based learning in general and the G4-project in particular.

Keywords:

Game-based learning, serious games, educational games.