Jogos digitais educacionais : um estudo de caso com uma ferramenta de aprendizagem para conteúdo de conversão de bases e aritmética básica de binários

Trabalho de Conclusão de Curso (graduação)—Universidade de Brasília, Instituto de Ciências Exatas, Departamento de Ciência da Computação, 2016.Há uma preocupação com a evasão e reprovação de alunos nos cursos de computação. Nesse contexto, este trabalho tem o objetivo de criar, desenvolver e aplicar um jogo educacional que auxilie na prática e retenção de conhecimento de alunos do primeiro semestre do curso de Ciência da Computação, que cursarem a disciplina com o conteúdo de conversão de bases e aritmética básica de binários. Assim, um jogo foi criado com base no framework Modelo de Design de Jogos Educacionais [30], que consiste na combinação de design de jogos, pedagogia e modelagem do conteúdo educacional, sendo que para esta última foi aplicado o conceito de scaffolding. O conteúdo acadêmico desenvolvido no jogo foi o de representação de dados e aritmética básica de números binários. O jogo foi aplicado somente na turma de experimento, enquanto a turma de controle teve aula normal. Para avaliar a eficácia do jogo no aprendizado, foram feitos 3 testes de conhecimento em cada turma. Os resultados da avaliação mostraram que o jogo promoveu retenção de conhecimento na turma de experimento em comparação com a turma de controle. Porém, registra-se que não se pôde medir o impacto da ferramenta pedagógica implementada, scaffolding, na aprendizagem, pois esta foi pouco usada pelos alunos enquanto jogavam.In the universities computer’s courses there is a concern about the failure and evasion of students. Thus, this work has the main objective to create, develop and apply an educational game that helps students to practice and to retain knowledge of the first semester of the Course of Computer Science and Degree in Computing, who attend the Introduction to Computer Systems discipline. The game was created based on the Educational Games (EG) Design Framework [30] which consists of the combination of game design, pedagogy and educational content modeling, as the scaffolding tool. The academic content developed in the game was data representation and basic arithmetic of binary numbers. The game was only applied in the experiment group, while the control group had a normal class. To evaluate the effectiveness of the game in the learning, three tests were applied in each class of experiment and of control. The results of the evaluation showed that the game promoted retention of knowledge of the experiment class compared to the control group. Regarding such a tool, it was not possible to measure its impact on learning expirience, since scaffolding tool was not intensively used by the students while playing the game

Characterizing performance via behavior co-occurrences in a 3D collaborative virtual learning environment : an exploratory study of performance and design

The iSocial 3D CVLE is an innovative design for addressing special needs at a distance that require social and active learning. This exploratory retrospective case study explored innovative methods of analyzing co-occurrences of behavior to gain insight into understanding and evaluating student performance and 3D CVLE design. Visualization techniques were employed to model student behavior within similarly structured activities. Linear mixed models revealed that student performance significantly differed across environments. In addition, environmental design attributes were identified through qualitative memos. General behavior patterns were associated with design environment attributes, warranting further study.Includes bibliographical references (pages 258-272)

Evaluating scaffolding in serious games with children

In scaffolding, full support (guidance) is given to the learner to support weakness and withdrawn bit by bit as learner knowledge fortifies (fading) (Martens & Maciuszek, 2013) . According to Puntambekar & Hubscher (2005), the attributes of scaffolding include diagnosis, calibration and fading. Research work on scaffolding in serious games – games with other purposes other than entertainment, has mainly focused on diagnosis and calibration often referred to in this field as player modelling and adaptivity respectively. There is barely any empirical study investigating fading this in these games. Instead of fading which is the gradual removal of scaffolding, an all-or-nothing approach is often used. The all-or-nothing could lead to cognitive overload in children. For children to have a pleasurable gameplay, it is important the cognitive load is managed effectively. The fundamental question asked in this thesis is “To what extent can scaffolding-fading improve children’s gameplay experience and knowledge gain?” This is broken down to four research questions – 1. Does the gradual removal of guidance improve children’s gameplay experience? 2. What dimensions of gameplay experience are impacted and to what extent are they impacted by the gradual removal of guidance? 3. Would guidance fading during gameplay improve knowledge gain? 4. What effect would inappropriate guidance-fading have on gameplay? A game in which the scaffolding can be manipulated is designed for this study. A comparative study methodology with a controlled experiment, comparing gameplay in both the gradual removal and the all-or-nothing mode, is employed with the aim of measuring gameplay experience and knowledge gain in these modes. Analytics was also employed to capture performance-related gameplay metrics. These methods were combined for a more substantial explanation of findings. The key contributions made include – 1. Appropriately implementing guidance-fading for the first time in a game AND highlighting the relevance of this scaffolding mode to serious gamepla