Improving Play and Learning Style Adaptation in a Programming Education Game

Renny S. N. Lindberg, Aziz Hasanov, Teemu H. Laine

2017

Abstract

The drive to teach programming to K-12 students has amplified in the past few years as several European countries have added programming to their national curricula. Teaching programming is not simple as even older students struggle with the topic. Educational games have been shown to increase motivation and learning efficiency, and many games have been created to teach programming. Adaptation is a technique that could improve these benefits even further by personalizing the game to learners in a heterogeneous group. In this study we presented Minerva, an adaptive programming education game designed for elementary school students. The game uses Bartle’s Player Types and Honey and Mumford’s Learning Style Questionnaire to adapt gameplay and learning content to match the player’s styles. We tested Minerva with 33 6th grade South Korean students using a post-test questionnaire, interviews, and a game log that was designed to keep track of the students’ profiles and how Minerva adapted to them. Based on the results, we proposed how Minerva’s adaptation system can be improved in the future. This paper can be of interest to anyone researching possible uses of adaptivity in (programming) education games.

Paper Citation

in Harvard Style

Lindberg R., Hasanov A. and Laine T. (2017). Improving Play and Learning Style Adaptation in a Programming Education Game . In Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Computer Supported Education - Volume 1: CSEDU, ISBN 978-989-758-239-4, pages 450-457. DOI: 10.5220/0006350304500457

in Bibtex Style

@conference{csedu17,
author={Renny S. N. Lindberg and Aziz Hasanov and Teemu H. Laine},
title={Improving Play and Learning Style Adaptation in a Programming Education Game},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Computer Supported Education - Volume 1: CSEDU,},
year={2017},
pages={450-457},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0006350304500457},
isbn={978-989-758-239-4},
}

in EndNote Style

TY - CONF
JO - Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Computer Supported Education - Volume 1: CSEDU,
TI - Improving Play and Learning Style Adaptation in a Programming Education Game
SN - 978-989-758-239-4
AU - Lindberg R.
AU - Hasanov A.
AU - Laine T.
PY - 2017
SP - 450
EP - 457
DO - 10.5220/0006350304500457