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Game Development for Computer Science Education

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Michael James ScottAuthors Info & Claims

ITiCSE '17: Proceedings of the 2017 ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education

Page 385

https://doi.org/10.1145/3059009.3081325

Published: 28 June 2017 Publication History

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Abstract

Educators have long used digital games as platforms for teaching. Games tend to have several qualities that aren't typically found in homework: they often situate problems within a compelling alternate reality that unfolds through intriguing narrative, they often draw more upon a player's intrinsic motivations than extrinsic ones, they can facilitate deliberate low intensity practice, and they often emphasize a spirit of play instead of work.

At ITiCSE 2016, this working group convened to survey the landscape of existing digital games that have been used to teach and learn computer science concepts. Our group discovered that these games lacked explicitly defined learning goals and even less evaluation of whether or not the games achieved these goals. As part of this process, we identified and played over 120 games that have been released or described in literature as means for learning computer science concepts. In our report, we classified how these games support the learning objectives outlined in the ACM/IEEE Computer Science Curricula 2013.

While we found more games than we expected, few games explicitly stated their learning goals and even fewer were evaluated for their capacity to meet these goals. Most of the games we surveyed fell into two categories: short-lived proof-of-concept projects built by academics or closed-source games built by professional developers. Gathering adequate learning data is challenging in either situation. Our original intent for the second year of our working group was to prepare a comprehensive framework for collecting and analyzing learning data from computer science learning games. Upon further discussion, however, we decided that a better next step is to validate the design and development guidelines that we put forth in our final report for ITiCSE 2016.

We extend this working group to a second year---with a mission to collaboratively develop a game with clearly defined learning objectives and define a methodology for evaluating its capacity to meet its goals.

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Bergaoui NGhannouchi S(2023)A BPM-based approach for ensuring an agile and adaptive learning processSmart Learning Environments10.1186/s40561-023-00259-510:1Online publication date: 18-Aug-2023
https://doi.org/10.1186/s40561-023-00259-5
Isaac JGardner-McCune C(2021)Developing Introductory Computer Science Pedagogy for Black Boys2021 Conference on Research in Equitable and Sustained Participation in Engineering, Computing, and Technology (RESPECT)10.1109/RESPECT51740.2021.9620642(1-6)Online publication date: 23-May-2021
https://doi.org/10.1109/RESPECT51740.2021.9620642
Yang JZhang XSu P(2019)Deep-Learning-Based Agile Teaching Framework of Software Development Courses in Computer Science EducationProcedia Computer Science10.1016/j.procs.2019.06.021154(137-145)Online publication date: 2019
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procs.2019.06.021

Index Terms

Game Development for Computer Science Education
1. Applied computing
  1. Education
    1. Interactive learning environments
2. Software and its engineering
  1. Software organization and properties
    1. Contextual software domains
      1. Virtual worlds software
        Interactive games

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Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

ITiCSE '17: Proceedings of the 2017 ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education

June 2017

412 pages

ISBN:9781450347044

DOI:10.1145/3059009

Conference Chairs:
Renzo Davoli
University of Bologna, Italy
,
Michael Goldweber
Xavier University, USA
,
Program Chairs:
Guido Rößling
Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany
,
Irene Polycarpou
University of Central Lancashire, Cyprus

Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for third-party components of this work must be honored. For all other uses, contact the Owner/Author.

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 28 June 2017

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game-based learning

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Abstract

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ITiCSE '17

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SIGCSE

ITiCSE '17: Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education

July 3 - 5, 2017

Bologna, Italy

Acceptance Rates

ITiCSE '17 Paper Acceptance Rate 56 of 175 submissions, 32%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 552 of 1,613 submissions, 34%

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Cited By

View all

Bergaoui NGhannouchi S(2023)A BPM-based approach for ensuring an agile and adaptive learning processSmart Learning Environments10.1186/s40561-023-00259-510:1Online publication date: 18-Aug-2023
https://doi.org/10.1186/s40561-023-00259-5
Isaac JGardner-McCune C(2021)Developing Introductory Computer Science Pedagogy for Black Boys2021 Conference on Research in Equitable and Sustained Participation in Engineering, Computing, and Technology (RESPECT)10.1109/RESPECT51740.2021.9620642(1-6)Online publication date: 23-May-2021
https://doi.org/10.1109/RESPECT51740.2021.9620642
Yang JZhang XSu P(2019)Deep-Learning-Based Agile Teaching Framework of Software Development Courses in Computer Science EducationProcedia Computer Science10.1016/j.procs.2019.06.021154(137-145)Online publication date: 2019
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procs.2019.06.021

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