Technology has brought the biggest changes to education. Over the past few years, game-based learning has helped learners increase their interest in learning. But games are rarely included in higher education, especially in programming language courses. Programming has long been considered a difficult subject to get started in, and although teachers around the world are aware of the importance of computational thinking in solving programming problems, little research has been done on it. Based on the design-based research method and ADDIE model, this study proposes that teachers use game learning to carry out programming activities, and analyzes its impact on computational thinking ability. This study conducted educational intervention on first-year students majoring in software in Jiangxi Vocational College of Finance and Economics. The objective is to assess whether students can try to improve their teaching effectiveness by using a game-based learning style combined with computational thinking elements when they encounter programming difficulties.
TopIntroduction
Game-based learning (GBL) is a pedagogical approach that engages students with educational material through games (Foster & Shah, 2020). It combines elements of gameplay and learning objectives to encourage students' interest in inquiry and experiential learning (Zeng, Parks, & Shang, 2020). GBL as a teaching method aligns with constructivist learning theory (Ramli, Maat & Khalid, 2020), where learning is an active social process and each learner has a unique perspective and mental model of how the world works. Games allow students to: a) learn through iteration, b) observe and manipulate reactions and dynamics in real-time, and c) receive continuous, expressive, low-risk feedback (Guan, Sun, Hwang & Wang, 2022). While these features are not unique to GBL, they make well-designed games valuable tools in active learning environments. (GBL)
Computational thinking is the skill of understanding concrete problems to develop robust solutions (Rich & Ellsworth, 2019). Implementing computational thinking (CT) courses often emphasizes how its novelty excites student interest, and what research shows (Kong et al., 2018). Students who are more interested in programming are more likely than others to discover the meaning of programming(Kraft-Terry & Kau, 2019), learn more about its impact, have a higher sense of programming self-efficacy, and make students more actively engaged in programming (Luik & Lepp, 2021). This study developed a game-based learning instructional design, using CT to teach programming courses to help teachers train more problem-solving students and improve vocational students' programming skills(Grover & Pea, 2018). It also investigates how GBL versus CT methods relate to student motivation.
In 2016, the Ministry of Education of China released the “13th Five-Year Plan for Education in the Information Age”, officially mentioning the promotion of interdisciplinary STEM education (Rich & Ellsworth, 2019). Computational thinking is a critical component of STEM education, which emphasizes developing students' problem-solving, logical reasoning, and creative thinking skills. To this end, many schools have included computational thinking lessons and activities in their instructional programs (Govender, 2022). Designers use programming tools and environments to expose students to coding. However, the ability to solve problems is something that only some students can develop in a short period or under the same conditions. Over the past few years, intensive research has shown that these difficulties persist and that students need to be more interested in programming (Grover & Basu, 2017). For this reason, digital games or computer games came into being(Barnett A. 2011). These games can reshape coding skills in schools by motivating and educating all students, including girls and underrepresented groups, about CT skills.
Instructional design models provide a framework for systematic teaching and learning, and since the 1950s, a variety of instructional conceptual models have emerged, of which ADDIE is one, which is suitable for developing educational games and serves as a framework for the entire game development process (Spatioti & Pange, 2022). The five stages of ADDIE are analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation. This model provides a cyclic instructional design system, and the evaluation results of each stage will bring the instructional designer back to the previous step to improve and modify, and finally form a summative instructional evaluation (Schuldt & Niegemann, 2021).