alexandra fernandes nuno sousa pedro soares dominic noy ... · projecto: cng – conteúdos da nova...

Alexandra Fernandes

Nuno Sousa

Pedro Soares

Dominic Noy

Isabel Varajão

João Nuno Oliveira

INTED 2013 – Virtual Presentation

Elizabeth Carvalho | Isabel Varajão Projecto: CNG – Conteúdos da Nova Geração | Actividade: Usabilidade de jogos educativos digitais

20-02-2013

Relation between videogames and learning has been vastly

explored in literature

– Videogames can help to practice and improve specific skills, namely mathematical skills

Present project

– The authors are part of a company in a consortium to develop a videogame as a learning aid

for mathematics for young children

– Previous work of our group showed that the type of movement children performed affected

their performance and their evaluations of the game

Objectives

– Collect usability measures for the developing videogame with a large group of users

– Explore the impact of the different tasks included in the game on the children’s evaluation of

learning and amusement during the game

Introduction


20-02-2013

Participants

– 18 children from a Portuguese Kindergarten

9 boys, 9 girls,

Age between 4 and 5 years-old

Design

– Group 1: Adventure Challenge

Implied movements such as pointing, running, climbing, and stooping that embedded the mathematical

tasks of counting and grouping

The game is presented as an adventure and in the instructions the mathematical tasks are not directly

mentioned

– Group 2: Mathematical Challenge

Included movements such as swimming and pointing, as a way to count and order numbers

The game is presented as a mathematical game in which children should know how to count to solve the

presented tasks

Method


20-02-2013

Matemáquina do Tempo (Time Mathmachine)

The contents of the videogame are being developed attending to the Portuguese mathematics

program in schools (from kindergarten to the 2th grade).

The concept of the videogame includes the idea of travelling through time.

In the final version the players will be able to travel through the Jurassic era, involving

field/woods graphics with dinosaurs, dinosaur eggs, lakes, trees, and rocks

The game


20-02-2013

Participants

– 18 children from a Portuguese kindergarten

9 boys, 9 girls, age between 4 and 5 years-old

Evaluation

– Questionnaires

Participant Characterization Questionnaire

Before playing the game

Demographic information, habits and experience with computers and game consoles

Players’ Opinion Questionnaire

After playing the game

Evaluated the children’s gaming experience in a set of questions about the evaluation of the game, its contents,

the ease of use, the graphics, favourite and less appreciated parts of the game, and general suggestions

– Observational data

Video analysis

Number and type of errors

Experimenters’ interventions

Procedure


20-02-2013

Experimental Set-up


20-02-2013

Amusement ratings

Results


20-02-2013

Learning evaluation

Results


20-02-2013

In this exploratory study with 18 children it was possible to observe a

tendency of response that indicates that the context of the performed tasks

in this videogame affects the subjective perceptions of amusement and

learning

Presenting tasks as mathematical challenges – Lead the children to perceive the game as a learning game

– Had an impact on their perception of amusement (lower rates when compared to the

adventure challenge)

Our results are based only on the children’s subjective evaluation of the

game

In the future, it will be important to collect data on objective performance

measures as well to evaluate if the observed tendencies are confirmed

Discussion

Campus de Azurém

4800-058 Guimarães

Tel: +351 253 510 580

Fax: +351 253 510 581

URL: www.ccg.pt

[email protected]

alexandra fernandes nuno sousa pedro soares dominic noy ... · projecto: cng – conteúdos da nova...

Documents