Reflection in Game-Based Learning: A Survey of Programming Games

Villareale, Jennifer; Biemer, Colan F.; El-Nasr, Magy Seif; Zhu, Jichen

doi:10.1145/3402942.3403011

Cited by 15 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 24 publications

(49 reference statements)

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“…Prompting players to reflect on their learning and gameplay encourages them to actively think about their actions and make purposeful decisions that better align with their goals (Rogers, 2001). Written reflection prompts are often incorporated in educational game-based learning environments to encourage self-regulated learning in players (Villareale et al, 2020;Cloude et al, 2021). To date, there has been little work investigating written student reflection data as an input modality for dynamically recognizing players' in-game goals.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Enhancing Multimodal Goal Recognition in Open-World Games with Natural Language Player Reflections

Gupta

Carpenter

Min

et al. 2022

AIIDE

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Open-world games promote engagement by offering players a high degree of autonomy to explore expansive game worlds. Player goal recognition has been widely explored for modeling player behavior in open-world games by dynamically recognizing players’ goals using observations of in-game actions and locations. In educational open-world games, in-game reflection tools can help students reflect on their learning and plan their strategies for future gameplay. Data generated from students’ written reflections can serve as a source of evidence for modeling player goals. We present a multimodal goal recognition approach that leverages players’ written reflections along with game trace log features to predict player goals during gameplay. Results show that both the highest predictive performance and best early prediction performance are achieved by deep learning-based, multimodal goal recognition models that utilize both written reflection and gameplay features as input. These models outperform unimodal deep learning models as well as a random forest baseline. Multimodal goal recognition using natural language reflection data has significant potential to enhance goal recognition model performance, as well as player modeling more generally, to support the creation of engaging and adaptive open-world digital games.

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Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Enhancing Multimodal Goal Recognition in Open-World Games with Natural Language Player Reflections

Gupta

Carpenter

Min

et al. 2022

AIIDE

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“…Figure 3 depicts the assignment of game design elements to each stage of the Experiential Learning Cycle. , and visualise students' actions to help learners reflect and examine their process to improve learning skills (Lin et al, 1999;Villareale et al, 2020). 2) On-action reflection refers to post-gameplay reflection, such as leader boards, progress information, comparative charts with previous progress, and star rating.…”

Section: Reflective Game Design (Rgd) Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Games provide two types of reflections: 1) In-action reflection refers to reflective feedback during gameplay in Heads-up displays (HUDs), reflective prompts, process models, audio/visual feedback, and social discourse. For instance, in CodeCombat (https://codecombat.com/), the reflective feedback is used to highlight the player's code, line by line and visualise the result of a player's code in a playback (Figure 4 (b)), and visualise students' actions to help learners reflect and examine their process to improve learning skills(Lin et al, 1999;Villareale et al, 2020). 2) On-action reflection refers to post-gameplay reflection, such as leader boards, progress information, comparative charts with previous progress, and star rating.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

A Reflective Game Design framework for Game-Based Learning

Shaheen

Halvorsen

Fotaris

2022

ECGBL

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Reflective practice is the ability to revisit and reassess one's previous actions to engage intentionally in the process of learning. The concept of reflection leads from unconscious aspects of learning or experience to mindful awareness, giving an individual the power to absorb everyday experiences to make appropriate conscious choices. Digital games in game-based learning (GBL) offer interactive learning with authentic practice and a high retention rate. Digital games are also considered an immersive and safe medium of stealth learning with the freedom to identify, explore, fail, and then retry. Main game elements such as feedback in a user interface (UI), head-up displays (HUDs), maps, prompt messages, and social discourse are reflective in nature; therefore, by default, games are reflection machines and appropriate mediums for triggering and supporting reflective learning. However, despite reflective learning having the ability to improve teaching and learning experiences in a practical form, work dedicated to reflective design in GBL is still limited. Previous studies have incorporated reflective practices into a learning environment to improve the learning rate. These practices may vary over domains and yield different outcomes that are not converged yet. While current game design comprises all features that facilitate reflection "as a whole set", it misses individual reflection differences. However, getting maximum usage of the reflective nature of games with authentic learning content while maintaining the fun criteria can be challenging. Hence, a sound design methodology and guidelines are needed to assist the game designer in aiding effective learning with reflective practices. In this paper, our primary purpose is to align reflective learning practices with existing GBL approaches and then provide a framework to incorporate reflective learning practices into designing GBL. The intention is that this framework will help designers, educators, and researchers to design game-based learning experiences following reflective design practices.

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“…Several research projects have been reported in the CS education literature that focuses on educational games for learning programming (Barnes et al, 2007;Malliarakis et al, 2014;Shabalina et al, 2008;Villareale et al, 2020). The working group for Game Development for Computer Science Education (ITiCSE-2016) examined nearly 120 games related to CS education and found more than half of the games focus on some aspect of programming (Johnson et al, 2016).…”

Section: Game-based Learning Systems (Educational Games Game Design T...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Shoot2Learn: Fix-and-Play Educational Game for Learning Programming; Enhancing Student Engagement by Mixing Game Playing and Game Programming

Mohanarajah

Sritharan

2022

JITE:Research

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Aim/Purpose: The key objective of this research is to examine whether fix-and-play educational games improve students' performance in learning programming languages. We also quantified the flow experiences of the students and analyzed how the flow contributes to their academic performances. Background: Traditionally, learning the first computer programming language is considered challenging, In this study, we propose the fix-and-play gaming approach that utilizes the following three facts to alleviate certain difficulties associated with learning programming: 1. digital games are computer programs, 2. young students are fond of playing digital games, and 3. students are interested in creating their own games. Methodology: A simple casual game Shoot2Learn was created for learning the fundamentals of branching. A number of errors were intentionally implanted in the game at different levels, and the students were challenged to fix the bugs before continuing the game. During the play, the program keeps records of the student’s academic progress and the time logs at different stages to measure the flow experience of the students. The proposed approach was systematically evaluated using a quasi-experimental design in real classroom settings in two countries, Sri Lanka, and USA. Contribution: The results derived from this research provide empirical evidence that the fix-and-play educational games ease some challenges in learning programming and motivate the students to play and learn. Findings: The results show that the first-year programming students who play the fix-and-play game gain statistically significant improvement in their academic performance. However, the result fails to suggest a significant positive correlation between the flow experience and academic performance. Recommendations for Practitioners: Empowering the students to fix the bugs in the educational games they play will motivate them to stay in the game and learn continuously. However, we have to make sure that the types and timing of bugs do not hinder the flow experience of the players, Recommendation for Researchers: Students normally play industry-level high-quality games. Experience and interest in game-playing differ significantly between students. Gender difference also plays an important role in selecting game genres. We need to identify how to address these issues when resources are not sufficient to provide an individualized gaming experience. Impact on Society: Programming is an essential skill for computer science students. The outcome of this research shows that the proposed approach helps to reduce the disenchantment associated with learning the first programming language. Future Research: Further investigation is necessary to verify whether the AI techniques such as user modeling can be used in educational games to reduce the effects of uncertainty associated with the variations in students' gaming skills and other factors.

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Reflection in Game-Based Learning: A Survey of Programming Games

Cited by 15 publications

References 24 publications

Enhancing Multimodal Goal Recognition in Open-World Games with Natural Language Player Reflections

Enhancing Multimodal Goal Recognition in Open-World Games with Natural Language Player Reflections

A Reflective Game Design framework for Game-Based Learning

Shoot2Learn: Fix-and-Play Educational Game for Learning Programming; Enhancing Student Engagement by Mixing Game Playing and Game Programming

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