Abstract:

The rapid growth in the ICT sector worldwide experienced in the past decade brought about huge economic profits and many vacancies in job markets. Despite the overall relative demand, the education of STEM subjects in many countries is facing challenges as traditional teaching approaches often fail to deliver STEM knowledge in an easy-to-understand way. Recently, researchers and educators have begun to introduce various innovative teaching approaches into STEM subject education as part of the effort to address the above challenge.

The NEWTON project is an EU Horizon 2020-funded project whose main objectives include building a networked platform to facilitate integration and dissemination of many technology-enhanced learning (TEL) materials and innovative learning approaches. NEWTON also investigates the impact of using various forms TEL materials, such as serious games, virtual labs, fabrication labs, augmented reality, virtual reality, and innovative learning approaches, such as problem-based learning, on students’ learning outcome and affective states. The targeted STEM subjects was deployed in various education stages.

In this paper, we present the Loop game, a third-level 2D serious game developed for a Java programming module, as part of the NEWTON project Programming large-scale pilot. This game conveys the key knowledge points related to the iteration concept, including basic for-loops, for-loop with “continue” statement, and for-loop with “break” statement, deployed in an interactive undersea world scenario. To investigate the impact of the game on students’ learning outcome, the game was deployed during the H8SDEV Software Development module in the Dublin-based National College of Ireland, in 2018. In this pilot, we have attracted mostly mature students (i.e., over 25 years old) with various educational backgrounds, including non-engineering/computer science. Before the pilot started, a demographic questionnaire was conducted, based on which students were grouped into different subgroups according to their gender, prior educational ability, initial attitude towards school and initial attitude towards STEM when analyzing the results. During the pilot, pre- and post-knowledge tests were given to students before and after the game, each including questions targeting the major knowledge points covered by the game.

In total, we obtained valid results from 31 students for the Loop game. Overall, there is a statistically significant improvement in learning outcomes before (average score 1.29/3) and after (2.12/3) the game. Considering different gender subgroups, the male group achieved statistically improved learning outcome, whereas the female group achieved an improvement which was not statistically significant. For different prior educational ability subgroups, statistically significant improved learning outcomes were observed in the “good mark” group of students while the “average mark” group only obtained improved learning outcome that was not statistically significant. Considering the attitude to school, the “love/like school” group of students achieved a statistically significant improved learning outcome, whereas the “school is OK” group obtained improved learning outcome that was not statistically significant. Regarding the initial attitude towards STEM, statistically significant improved learning outcomes were observed in both the “love/like learning STEM” student group and the “learning STEM is OK” group.

Keywords:

Serious game, technology-enhanced learning, STEM education, Java, Programming.