A Preliminary Study of the Influence of Game Types on the Learning Interests of Primary School Students in Digital Games

• Main Authors: Min-Bin Chen, Siou-Ge Wang, You-Ning Chen, Xiao-Fang Chen, Yi-Zhen Lin
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2020-04-01
• Series: Education Sciences
• Subjects: self-learning; augmented reality; game-based learning; digital learning
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7102/10/4/96

Learning is mainly based on the students’ mental activities. If they can learn spontaneously, it will help increase their interest and the effectiveness of the learning. Learning through playing will make it easier for students to learn spontaneously. The balance between gameplay and education in educational games is a key issue in designing such games. Designing educational games to be less complex and more casual makes it easier to balance education and entertainment. For courses with practical operational characteristics, combining a game with a virtual and real integration experience can increase both student interest and learning effectiveness. This research develops an augmented reality app, named "Mobile Plant", which is an app developed for the primary school plant curriculum, combining games and augmented reality to enhance students’ interest in learning. A questionnaire shows that the game has positive results in terms of game difficulty and absorption of content.