Using Game Development to Teach Programming

Introduction

There are several difficulties faced by students during the teaching-learning process of programming. These are often related to the demand for a predominant logical-mathematical thinking in these courses (Silva et al., 2015; Serrano-Cámara et al., 2014). For this reason, teachers, coordinators and managers are always looking for new teaching-learning methodologies that can motivate students to learn programming (Eseryel et al., 2014; Couceiro et al., 2011). In addition, many teachers make changes to the teaching methodology for the pedagogical projects of the courses, in a search for project ideas that can promote multidisciplinarity, or even to provide university extension projects and teacher training, among other possibilities (Couceiro et al., 2011).

According to Silva et al. (2015), students from undergraduate courses and even postgraduate courses cannot yet be considered exactly “adults”. For this reason, traditional teaching methodologies can boost the “maturity delay” in these people. This is due to the fact that the student takes a passive role in the teaching-learning process, and it is up to the teacher to decide what, when and how students should learn each subject and acquire certain skills.

According to the Entities Maintaining Higher Education Institutions in the State of São Paulo (Semesp), Brazil, courses in the ​​Information Technology area are the ones that have the highest dropout rate of students, in line with what happens elsewhere in the world. The dropout rates are around 66.66% in Information Systems courses and 75% in Computer Science courses. One of the reasons students give up courses is their inability to learn logic and programming. This is very worrying, as it directly reflects the lack of expert labor in the world. It is projected that the shortage of skilled labor will reach 750,000 professionals by 2020, according to Softex (2015).

On the other hand, the use of methodologies that promote the development of digital games in Computing courses seems to be a good opportunity to stimulate students to learn (Silva et al., 2015; Serrano-Cámara et al., 2014). Digital games have been referenced as a valuable tool and a possibility for the construction of knowledge, transforming the act of playing into action to learn and teach, and building important objectives to achieve learning effectively. Using games in courses can bring benefits such as: using fun to motivate; facilitating learning and stimulating the retention capacity of what is taught; working the mental and intellectual functions of the player; encouraging learning through discovery; promoting socialization; awakening expert behavior, and more (Hayes & Games, 2008).