Go Carb Deck: A Card Game for Teaching Classification of Simple Monosaccharides

Abstract

One approach that has been gaining significant attention among chemistry education scholars and practitioners is the employment of game-based learning to teach least-learned and difficult topics at various educational levels. One reason for this is that it promotes active, constructive learning and makes learning science a fun experience through educational games. As such, this study aims to design, develop, and evaluate a card game that can be used to teach the classification of simple monosaccharides to high school students. The developed card game was tested on a class of high school students to investigate the improvement in their academic achievement. Player experience was also evaluated using an adopted game experience questionnaire that explored three components: in-game, postgame, and social presence experience. The results showed significant improvements in academic achievement (t(45) = −11.97, p = 0.00001, d = 2.55) which implies that the developed card game can be used as teaching material on classifying simple monosaccharides. Results also demonstrate that the students were immersed, challenged, and in flow and had a positive affect while minimal tiredness and negative experience were reported. Students also reported high empathy and behavioral involvement after playing the game. These results, while preliminary, provide important clues on how games and gameful experiences can serve as the basis for developing educational games to teach abstract concepts in chemistry in a fun and challenging way.

GamesBond: A Game-based Supplemental Teaching Material for Ionic and Covalent Bonding

“…In the Philippines’ K-12 Curriculum, ninth grade is the third level of the Basic Education Curriculum for Junior High School. Science is taught in this curriculum using a spiraling approach, , in which the scope and sequence of science topics are designed so that these abilities are reviewed at every grade level, enabling mastery of progressively more challenging material . By the time they finish this level of the junior high school curriculum, students should understand how atoms combine to form molecules.…”

Learning Mole Calculation through a Board Game in an Engaging and Enjoyable Environment: Design, Implementation, and Evaluation

“…More recently, Yang and Choi found that by incorporating a game in a class, their subjects could still remember and identify some significant characteristics constituting Mendeleev’s table 7 and 60 days following the experiment. Similarly, Badajos et al revealed that the students learning simple monosaccharide classification through games attained significantly higher post-test scores on the assessment tasks because of the positive learning experiences. Finally, Girón-Gambero and Franco-Mariscal confirmed that games could even enhance the learning of the atomic structure, including constituent particles, ions, and isotopes, among students diagnosed with learning difficulties.…”