Search

Contribution: This article compares the effectiveness for online software engineering education of video-based learning and game-based learning using teacher-authored educational video games created by using authoring tools. Background: Although substantial research has evaluated the impact of video-based and game-based learning versus traditional teaching approaches, little research has been done comparing the effectiveness of video-based learning and video game-based learning. Furthermore, the few studies that performed this comparison did not compare the effectiveness for online education or examined teacher-authored video games. Research Questions: Is game-based learning using teacher-authored video games more effective than video-based learning in terms of knowledge acquisition for software engineering students in online settings? Is game-based learning using teacher-authored video games more effective than video-based learning in terms of motivation for software engineering students in online settings? Methodology: A quasi-experimental design with control and experimental groups and pre- and post-tests was employed. A total of 180 software engineering students participated in this study, 81 of which belonged to the control group while the other 99 were part of the experimental group. The students in the control group took an online lesson in which they learned exclusively by watching videos, whereas the students in the experimental group took the same lesson but learned exclusively by playing an educational video game created by a teacher through an authoring tool. Findings: The results show that game-based learning using teacher-authored educational video games was more effective than video-based learning in terms of both knowledge acquisition and motivation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contributions: This article presents a large-scale study which investigates students’ reaction to game-based learning as part of programming courses. The study focuses on knowledge acquisition, learner experience, and game usability. Background: Despite the rapid growth of the information and communication technologies (ICTs) sector, the lack of engagement with science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) subjects and high dropout rates in computer science and engineering majors is linked directly to the large number of unfilled vacancies in the ICT employment market. To tackle one of the underlying causes for this crisis, (i.e., traditional teaching paradigms struggle to attract students to rather abstract and difficult STEM subjects such as programming), innovative technology-enhanced learning solutions are sought. Intended Outcomes: A set of serious games were proposed and designed to promote students’ understanding of programming concepts, improve their confidence, stimulate their interest in STEM and increase engagement with the courses through vivid and appealing scenarios. Application Design: Targeting undergraduate and postgraduate students, the games focused on several key programming topics. They were designed to visualize the programming concepts in illustrative and entertaining scenarios. A comprehensive assessment methodology which includes surveys, observations, and interviews was employed to investigate the impact of the games. Findings: The results show that by using the games in the teaching and learning process all the students have benefited, although differently based on their location, educational backgrounds, and game played. The impact of detailed demographic aspects, such as participants’ use of technology, their initial attitude toward school, and learning STEM on the results needs further study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contribution: Research has shown that computer science (CS) students who start programming assignments (PAs) early generally receive higher grades. This article presents and evaluates a gamification approach that utilizes software engineering tools to motivate CS students to start and finish PAs earlier. Background: CS can be difficult to learn because students often struggle with errors and how to properly test their code. For these reasons, it is essential that students start their PAs early. Furthermore, software engineering tools, such as version control and unit testing, are increasingly important for students to learn early in their career. Intended Outcomes: This gamification approach aims to motivate CS students to start and complete PAs earlier, as well as instill software engineering best practices. Application Design: To motivate students to start and finish assignments early, an open-source gamification system called the Leaderboard was developed. Using gamified points, the Leaderboard rewards students who pass PA unit tests well before the assignment is due. The system is fully automated using Github Classroom, a build server, and the Moodle learning management system. Findings: Results indicate students who used the Leaderboard did not start assignments significantly earlier; however, they finished assignments earlier, committed code more frequently, and passed more unit tests. The students found the Leaderboard to be motivating and passing unit tests was exciting for them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores whether crowd-sourced human creativity within a gamified collaborative design framework can address the complexity of predictive environment design. This framework is predicated on gamifying crowd objectives and presenting environment design problems as puzzles. A usability study reveals that the framework is considered usable for the task. Participants were asked to configure an environment puzzle to reduce an important crowd metric, the total egress time. The design task was constructed to be straightforward and uses a simplified environment as a probe for understanding the utility of gamification and the performance of collaboration. Single-player and multiplayer designs outperformed both optimization and expert-sourced designs of the same environment and multiplayer designs further outperformed the single-player designs. Single-player and multiplayer iterations followed linear and exponential decrease trends in total egress time, respectively. Our experiments provide strong evidence toward an interesting novel approach of crowdsourcing collaborative environment design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using virtual environments (VEs) is a safer and cost-effective alternative to executing dangerous tasks, such as training firefighters and industrial operators. Immersive virtual reality (VR) combined with game aspects have the potential to improve the user experience in the VE by increasing realism, engagement, and motivation. This article investigates the impact of VR technology on 46 immersive gamified simulations with serious purposes and classifies it towards a taxonomy. Our findings suggest that immersive VR improves simulation outcomes, such as increasing learning gain and knowledge retention and improving clinical outcomes for rehabilitation. However, it also has limitations such as motion sickness and restricted access to VR hardware. Our contributions are to provide a better understanding of the benefits and limitations of using VR in immersive simulations with serious purposes, to propose a taxonomy that classifies them, and to discuss whether methods and participants profiles influence results. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Research problem: Gamification is a concept that originates from the digital media domain. It includes a process of enhancing a service using game design elements in nongame contexts. Although much research exists on gamification, very few studies focus on the application of gamification in the enterprise. Research questions: (1) How do managers currently use and experience gamification as a communication medium? (2) Why is it that few instances of gamification exist in enterprise management? (3) Is gamification's own branding somehow cannibalizing itself in enterprise applications? Literature review: We reviewed gamification literature in the workplace and looked at the applicability of game design elements within the enterprise culture. Enterprise gamification is still considered uncharted territory, and more research on gamification in the enterprise is needed. But existing research studies support our claims that there is high potential for enterprise gamification that needs to be explored. Methodology: Observations were made during fieldwork with an exploratory interview research approach. These observations were put to test via an online psychological single-blind controlled quantitative experiment conducted with 198 survey respondents to investigate the effect of branding on gamification and its perception in the enterprise context. Results and conclusions: The results show that using the “gamification” brand clearly drives lower rates of perceived acceptance of the concept, whereas using an “unbranded” version of the same gamification concepts results in comparatively higher rates of perceived acceptance and a general willingness to adopt within the enterprise context. The results also confirm that “interest” and “branding” are interrelated, and that gamification faces higher rates of resistance, lower rates of adoption, and lower success rates in the enterprise compared to other fields. Thus, enterprise gamification may not be correctly branded, and our research recommends the use of a set of procedural, prepackaged best practices, in the form of an implementation framework, to guarantee optimal design and implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Fine-grained recognition concerns categorization at sub-ordinate levels, where the distinction between object classes is highly local. Compared to basic level recognition, fine-grained categorization can be more challenging as there are in general less data and fewer discriminative features. This necessitates the use of a stronger prior for feature selection. In this work, we include humans in the loop to help computers select discriminative features. We introduce a novel online game called “Bubbles” that reveals discriminative features humans use. The player's goal is to identify the category of a heavily blurred image. During the game, the player can choose to reveal full details of circular regions (“bubbles”), with a certain penalty. With proper setup the game generates discriminative bubbles with assured quality. We next propose the “BubbleBank” representation that uses the human selected bubbles to improve machine recognition performance. Finally, we demonstrate how to extend BubbleBank to a view-invariant 3D representation. Experiments demonstrate that our approach yields large improvements over the previous state of the art on challenging benchmarks. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Disseminating scientific findings through journal publications is the very nature of every academic discipline. However, with the emergence of knowledge society and lifelong learning needs, there is a growing demand for alternative ways to enhance the dissemination of research findings to a broader audience than academics and young students. In this paper, we first introduce the concept of serious games as a well-acknowledged alternative method to discourse and delivering current engineering or management-related research findings to society. Then, considering the lack of a unified serious game design framework and the gaps in the extant literature, we illustrate our design rationale for the development and evaluation of serious games. The proposed framework contributes the following advancements to the body of extant literature and practices. It is strongly centered on a well-known knowledge transfer framework, and it is strongly based on a participatory design approach deliberately involving iterative and frequent testing and fine-tuning sessions that overcome the inherent limitations of traditional stage-gate or waterfall development models. We conclude by providing some insights gained during the development of the game and the framework, as well as by discussing the challenges associated with the design and use of serious games as an alternative genre for disseminating engineering- and management-related research findings. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]