Game Development Model for Teaching Dire
Game Development Model for Teaching Direction to School children
Marina Ismail, Norizan Mat Diah, Suzana Ahmad & Mohd Amry Bin Ariffin
Fakulti Sains Komputer dan Matematik
Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM)
40450 Shah Alam, Selangor Darul Ehsan
marina@tmsk.uitm.edu.my, norizan@tmsk.uitm.edu.my, suzana@tmsk.uitm.edu.my
Proceeding-3rd International Malaysian Educational Technology, IMETC 2009
Abstract
Game education is still in its infancy even though many researchers are now looking into this
area. A good educational game must fulfil all the game and learning requirements. This
paper discusses about the development of an educational game called Let’s Drive. Let’s
Drive is developed to assist children in learning direction in English Language. Let’s Drive is
developed according to the Malaysian curriculum for primary schools but can be extended to
anybody who wishes to learn direction in English as second language. The development
combines the game design methodology and instructional design approach. The game is
designed for children at the age of 7 – 9 years old. It is an interactive game which enables
children to learn while playing the game. The game has been developed using freeware
development tools and proven to be a competitive game just like the games built by
professionals. A usability test has been conducted to test the levels of user’s satisfaction
towards the product. The study showed that children like to play the game and eventually
learn about direction unconsciously. An easy-to-develop game design allows the game to be
easily upgraded with more challenging features and multi platform capability. This
educational gaming approach can be a promising pedagogy to the learning field.
Keywords: children, educational game, pedagogy
1.0
Introduction
For most kids, gaming is now becoming one of their hobbies. Each month parents spent
hundreds of Ringgit buying their child new and latest games available in the market such as
games for Playstations, Nintendo, Microsoft Xbox and also computer games. Kids nowadays
pay more attention to gadgets, gizmos and games rather than reading children‟s story book
or other educational books.
Educational games are a new way out for children to learn and have fun at the same time.
This approach for learning is interesting, fun and easy to understand among children as their
learning process is mostly less conscious and more of experiential (Crawford, 2003). This is
a good reason for educational game such as “Let‟s Drive” to be introduced to them. This
learning approach is a good way to teach children about the direction. Learning direction in
English Language is a part of the Malaysian New Curriculum for Primary 2 (KBSR) school
children. This subject requires a lot of understanding and visualizing of the moves when
following direction. Therefore, an educational game about learning direction in English, like
„Let‟s Drive, will help children to better understand and able to visualize all the moves when
following direction.
2.0
Education Game for Kids
The positive impact of gaming was first recognized some 3,000 years ago by military
organizations and current forms of war-gaming were introduced into Europe in the
nineteenth century. Military organizations were also the first to recognize the value of video
games in training, although this has only been within the past five or six years. Many should
have been struck by the concern military leader‟s show for their 18-20 year old recruits; they
are clearly determined to look after these young people to ensure they have all the
necessary skills to do the job as safely as possible and video games can be of great value in
this (Beck 2005). This technique gives a new idea for people to discover gaming in
education. Many would wonder why gaming is useful in education but not many would
wonder how to use game in education. This will depend to software or game developer to
set a purpose and target in their development and different developer always has a different
set of ideology or ways in development. Their target market also will determine how big is
their development will be.
Recently, many designers and researchers have become interested in how video games can
serve as forms of cultural expression beyond entertainment alone. As part of this series of
discoveries, more and more evidence seems to suggest that video games are helping
people become well-educated, especially through contextual experimentation with complex
systems. But, we have paid little attention to video games role in the broader disparity
between the well-schooled and the well-educated. If we want to get serious about the future
of educational video games, then we need to recognize and promote video games role in the
broader overhaul of our current educational situation (Bogost 2005).
3.0
Educational Game Design for Let’s Drive
The design for Let‟s Drive involves five major elements which are cognitive approach, game
genre, multimedia elements, indirect teaching and learning approach and game
development. Collaboration between these five elements can be seen to Figure 1 below:
3.1
Cognitive
According to Chamot (1994), learning is an active, dynamic process in which learners are
fully engaged at the time the learning happened. Chamot (1994) also believed that
information should be selected from the environment and retained when it is important to the
learner. Therefore, information must be interesting enough for the learners to pick-up and
retain in their long term memory for future retrieval. In addition, information should also be
organized and related to what is already known, and it should be used in appropriate
contexts. Some learning strategies had been discussed by Chamot (1994) are summarizing,
deduction or induction, imagery, auditory representation and making inferences.
Game Genre - Adventure
Game Development
Top-Down Perspective
game
Short levels, simple game
Cognitive
Understanding about
directions
Deliver the content in
modular forms for
better cognitive
development
Develop the cognitive
thinking and
psychology in mental
development during
playing the game
Multimedia
Text
Graphics
Audio
Video
Game Criteria
Goals
Rules
Competition
Challenge
Fantasy
Safety
Entertainment
Multiple Levels Play
Level 1:“Small City”
o Low difficulty
o Introduction to
simple direction
Let’s
Drive
Level 2: “Medium City”
o Medium difficulty
o Introduction to
more directions
Level 3: “Big City”
o Most difficult
o Combination of
directions
o Increased
challenges and
competition
Indirect Teaching and learning
Approach
Gaming Approach
Thematic approach
Figure 1: Conceptual model for Develop educational computer games (Let‟s Drive)
Summarizing strategy is making mental, oral or written summary of information gained at
certain points in learning process. To adapt summarizing strategy, Let‟s Drive had prepared
an instruction of directions for every phase of game. Each instruction is simple and written
clearly. Let‟s Drive also adapt deduction or induction strategy where in this game the player
will have to follow some rules, if player is able to follow the rules, extra marks will be given
whereas, marks will be deducted when player is unable to follow the rules. For imagery
strategy, Let‟s Drive have stimulate mental picture for players from information and graphics
given. Mental strategy is to replay a word, phrase or piece of information. For this strategy,
Let‟s Drive includes voice and text as a form of instruction to lead the player to play correctly.
This voice will appear concurrently as the player play the game and is available throughout
the game. Making inference strategy is by using context clues to guess meaning and predict
upcoming information. Let‟s drive uses symbols that act as clues to the player so that they
can guess some meaning and predict upcoming information.
A psychiatrist, Gestalt, believes that in each learning process, students will create cognitive
structure in their memory (Norizan, 2003). Every time a learning process occurs, a student
will structure all his or her learning experience and saved all the experiences in his or her
memory. When problems occur and need to be solved, the students will retrieve
significance experience in order to help them to solve problems they are facing. For an
example, this game requires students to solve a few problems from each obstacle that have
been created for them. Each problem was design to test students‟ understanding on their
direction skills. For better understanding, this project has engaged the modular design to
deliver the content in stages, where each stage delivers a more difficult content and an
increased challenge.
This project had adopted the cognitive approach in the design and development of the
prototype (Let‟s drive).
3.2
Indirect Teaching and Learning Approach
Let‟s Drive provides a platform for an effective indirect teaching and learning environment.
Players will enjoy the game and at the same time the concepts of direction and educational
values will be adhered in them. Learning process that the learners had gone through was
not realized by the players. Each player just concentrates on getting the highest score
without realizing that the new knowledge, that is the direction, has been accumulated in
them cognitively. This platform will create tense free environment, therefore it allows
learners to enjoy themselves without realizing that they are learning something.
3.3
Game Genre: Adventure
Adventure games, strategy games and all forms of puzzle games are among good examples
of games genre that might involve cognitive elements. In most of the adventure game,
players are given brief visual or/and verbal instructions on the very basic rules of the game.
Arming with this basic knowledge, the players venture into the world of fantasy and learn
more about it. When they encounter new things, they learn to adapt it with their existing
schema by trial and error or mental reflection. The game gives hints appropriately to help
elaborating new information so that it can be connected to the knowledge network easily. In
some action games, players know only the basic control of the game and learn by making
mistakes and exploring directly in the game world. The top-down approach is effective in
computer games, as players begin with a complex and complete task, rather than small
parts of the task (Ang & Rao, 2003).
A study that has been conducted on the different type of game genre, showed that
adventure game is the most suitable genre for Let‟s Drive Game because the game needs
to focus on exploration and also involve item gathering, avoid obstacles and scoring board.
In this game development, top-down perspective is employed as it is suitable with the
capability of the game engine in making two dimensional (2D) games (GameMaker, 2008).
Top-down perspective also sometimes referred to as bird's-eye view, overhead view or
helicopter view. The view is a camera angle view used in computer and video games that
shows the player and the area around them from above.
3.4
Multimedia
Multimedia elements are fascinating people in computer games or web environments, not
only because of their power to influence cognitive and motivational processes, but especially
because of their capability to stimulate emotions, like fear or pleasure (Hermann, 2008). In
order to develop interesting educational game, multimedia elements such as text, graphic,
audio and video should be added. Let‟s Drive embedded audio in each level to increase the
players‟ excitement and also understanding. The usage of text element in Let‟s Drive has
become a major structure as it is the main medium to interact with the players (through
written text). Fun, interesting looking colour 2D graphics has been used throughout Let‟s
Drive. Combination of these multimedia elements had brought out the flavours of this game
and had attracted players to keep on playing the game.
3.5
Game Development
The development for Let‟s Drive Game adhere to the principles of gaming which
incorporated the basic gaming criteria that are goals, rules, competition, challenge, fantasy,
safety and entertainment. To consolidate with the modular presentation of knowledge for
maximum cognitive development, multiple levels game play has been employed. The
multiple levels serve as a twofold function that are as modular content delivery as well as
increased challenge of game play.
The content of the Let‟s Drive game consist of directions such as turn left, turn right, go
straight and many more as stated in the curriculum. The game design is divided into three
levels; with each level has different levels of difficulties. The names of the levels are “Small
City”, “Medium City” and the last level is the “Big City”. The names are created as such in
order to create a fantasy in the mind of the children while playing the game. Every level
consists of three tasks and the structure of this game will be illustrated using the menu
hierarchy (Figure 2).
Main menu
Level 1
Level 2
Level 3
Task 1
Task 1
Task 2
Task 2
Task 2
Task 3
Task3
Task 3
Task 1
Highest Scores
Figure 2: The hierarchy chart from the Let‟s Drive game
For each level, the player/ learner is required follow the instructions in the text that appears
at the bottom of the game screen to enable the player/learner to proceed to the next level. It
will also display a small screen area to indicate whether the user has taken the correct or the
wrong turn in the game. The victory flag shows the final destination that the user must reach.
In level 1 (Figure 3), obstacles and the road turn are few. In the game, player/learner needs
to follow the direction given while at the same time try to avoid colliding with the obstacles.
Obstacles in games are challenges which make the game an interesting piece to play.
Figure 3 : Screen shots for the first level of Let‟s Drive
In level 2 (Figure 4), obstacles and road directions become more difficult with increased
number of road turns (directions) and obstacles. More directions are being instructed for the
player/learner to be complete within the same amount of time as in Level 1.
Figure 4: Screen shots for the second level of Let‟s Drive
Third level shows the highest in terms of complexity of the directions as the number of roads,
junctions and dead end roads are increased (Figure 5). These increases the obstacles and
difficulty of the games which add more challenges and tested the player/ learner cognitive
ability to understand directions.
Figure 5: Screen shots for the third level of Let‟s Drive
The highest scores window will be displayed when the game is completed either by
successfully completing the game or when the player has finished using all the „life‟ given to
them in the game (Figure 6). User needed to write their name or nickname in the scoring
window if he or she gets top ten highest score. This feature enhance students motivation
level as they tracked their progress (Marina, 2009).
Figure 6: Screen shots for Top ten highest scores
4.0
Evaluation
A usability test has been conducted on Let‟s Drive Game using observation method [9]. A
total number of 5 children have been selected to conduct the test. The children selected are
homogenous as all of them have the same literacy level about computer application. The
test studied the effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction level of the application.
Effectiveness measured the accuracy and completeness in achieving specified goals,
efficiency measured the accuracy and completeness in terms of resource utilization, that is
the completion time while satisfaction is the feeling of freedom from discomfort, and positive
attitudes towards the use of the application (Bevan et al. 1991). Two instruments have been
developed to be used for data gathering; the observation checklist and the questionnaire. An
observation checklist has been developed to guide the researcher on items that need to be
observed during the test (Md Dahari 2008, Marina 2009). The items are about the
functionality of each buttons and interaction of the starting menu and exploration of the game
for both effectiveness and efficiency. Measurements of satisfaction are taken using post
questionnaire with children. Children are required to answer few questions on their
satisfaction after completing the game. The questions and answers are structured using a 5
point Likert scale with 1 for strongly agree and 5 for strongly disagree. All questions was
designed to get the input from the children on how they feel about the game, do they like it
and was it to easy to play or not.
The effectiveness and efficiency are measured using a simple usability metrics introduced by
Jacob Nielsen (Nielsen 2001). The metrics analyzes user's success rate. Based on the
analysis of the success rate, the level of effectiveness is 71% and the level of efficiency is
56%. The analysis on post questionnaire of satisfaction level is 82%. By averaging the rate
of effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction, the usability level is approximately 70%.
However, detail explanation about the usability test is not discussed in this paper.
5.0 Conclusion
„Let‟s Drive‟ was developed as an alternative to learning direction in English Language to
school children. Gaming approach was chosen as an approach to teach about direction as
gaming has proven to be a very attractive way to get children to hook on a material for a
longer period of time. Educational game has also proven to promote indirect learning where
learners play without realizing that they actually learning. Crawford (2003) stated that every
human being has an instinct to learn by playing. The top-down perspective of „Let‟s Drive‟
also provides the visualization of how the move from one place to another happens when the
player follow certain directions. This feature extends the capability of a text book and allows
learners to understand better through visual learning. A usability test conducted showed that
users are satisfied with the approach use in teaching about directions. Educational game
has proven to be an interesting and attractive method for learning.
References
Ang, S. and Rao, R. K. 2003. Theories of Learning: A Computer Games perspective. IEEE
Fifth International Symposium on Multimedia Software Engineering, pp. 239-245.
Bevan, N., Kirawoski, J. & Maissel, J. 1991. What is Usability? Proceedings of t he 4th
International Conference on HCI, Stuggart, September. http://www.nigelbevan.com /papers/
whatis92.pdf [3 October 2009].
Bogost, I. 2005. Videogames and the future of education. Campus-Wide Information
Systems. 13(2), pp. 119-125.
Chamot, U. and O'Malley, J.M. 1994. The CALLA handbook: Implementing the cognitive
academic language learning approach. Longman. New York, NY
Crawford, C. 2003. The Art of Interactive Design. No Starch Press. San Francisco.
Game maker http://www.mindtools.tased.edu.au/gamemaker [3 July 2008].
Hermann,
A.
2008.
Multimedia
Elements
and
Emotional
Processes.
http://www.usq.edu.au/electpub/ejist/docs/Vol7_no2/FullPapers/MMelements.htm
[4 November 2008].
J. C. Beck, J. C. 2005. The impact of video gaming on decision-making and team working
skills. Campus-Wide Information Systems. 22(5), pp 320-326.
Marina Ismail. 2009. Perisian Kursus Multimedia (BACA) untuk pembelajaran Bahasa
Melayu peringkat pra sekolah menggunakan pendekatan Vygotsky. PhD Thesis. Universiti
Kebangsaan Malaysia.
Md Dahari, M.K. 2008. Usability Testing With Children for Educational Game Using
Observation Method. Master Thesis, Mara University of Technology.
Nielsen,
J.
2001.
Usability
Metrics.
Jakob
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20010121.html [2 October 2009].
Nielsen‟s
AlertBox.
Norizan Mat Diah. 2003. Story Telling and gaming Approach in develop courseware Akhlak
Islamiah. Master Thesis, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia.
Marina Ismail, Norizan Mat Diah, Suzana Ahmad & Mohd Amry Bin Ariffin
Fakulti Sains Komputer dan Matematik
Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM)
40450 Shah Alam, Selangor Darul Ehsan
marina@tmsk.uitm.edu.my, norizan@tmsk.uitm.edu.my, suzana@tmsk.uitm.edu.my
Proceeding-3rd International Malaysian Educational Technology, IMETC 2009
Abstract
Game education is still in its infancy even though many researchers are now looking into this
area. A good educational game must fulfil all the game and learning requirements. This
paper discusses about the development of an educational game called Let’s Drive. Let’s
Drive is developed to assist children in learning direction in English Language. Let’s Drive is
developed according to the Malaysian curriculum for primary schools but can be extended to
anybody who wishes to learn direction in English as second language. The development
combines the game design methodology and instructional design approach. The game is
designed for children at the age of 7 – 9 years old. It is an interactive game which enables
children to learn while playing the game. The game has been developed using freeware
development tools and proven to be a competitive game just like the games built by
professionals. A usability test has been conducted to test the levels of user’s satisfaction
towards the product. The study showed that children like to play the game and eventually
learn about direction unconsciously. An easy-to-develop game design allows the game to be
easily upgraded with more challenging features and multi platform capability. This
educational gaming approach can be a promising pedagogy to the learning field.
Keywords: children, educational game, pedagogy
1.0
Introduction
For most kids, gaming is now becoming one of their hobbies. Each month parents spent
hundreds of Ringgit buying their child new and latest games available in the market such as
games for Playstations, Nintendo, Microsoft Xbox and also computer games. Kids nowadays
pay more attention to gadgets, gizmos and games rather than reading children‟s story book
or other educational books.
Educational games are a new way out for children to learn and have fun at the same time.
This approach for learning is interesting, fun and easy to understand among children as their
learning process is mostly less conscious and more of experiential (Crawford, 2003). This is
a good reason for educational game such as “Let‟s Drive” to be introduced to them. This
learning approach is a good way to teach children about the direction. Learning direction in
English Language is a part of the Malaysian New Curriculum for Primary 2 (KBSR) school
children. This subject requires a lot of understanding and visualizing of the moves when
following direction. Therefore, an educational game about learning direction in English, like
„Let‟s Drive, will help children to better understand and able to visualize all the moves when
following direction.
2.0
Education Game for Kids
The positive impact of gaming was first recognized some 3,000 years ago by military
organizations and current forms of war-gaming were introduced into Europe in the
nineteenth century. Military organizations were also the first to recognize the value of video
games in training, although this has only been within the past five or six years. Many should
have been struck by the concern military leader‟s show for their 18-20 year old recruits; they
are clearly determined to look after these young people to ensure they have all the
necessary skills to do the job as safely as possible and video games can be of great value in
this (Beck 2005). This technique gives a new idea for people to discover gaming in
education. Many would wonder why gaming is useful in education but not many would
wonder how to use game in education. This will depend to software or game developer to
set a purpose and target in their development and different developer always has a different
set of ideology or ways in development. Their target market also will determine how big is
their development will be.
Recently, many designers and researchers have become interested in how video games can
serve as forms of cultural expression beyond entertainment alone. As part of this series of
discoveries, more and more evidence seems to suggest that video games are helping
people become well-educated, especially through contextual experimentation with complex
systems. But, we have paid little attention to video games role in the broader disparity
between the well-schooled and the well-educated. If we want to get serious about the future
of educational video games, then we need to recognize and promote video games role in the
broader overhaul of our current educational situation (Bogost 2005).
3.0
Educational Game Design for Let’s Drive
The design for Let‟s Drive involves five major elements which are cognitive approach, game
genre, multimedia elements, indirect teaching and learning approach and game
development. Collaboration between these five elements can be seen to Figure 1 below:
3.1
Cognitive
According to Chamot (1994), learning is an active, dynamic process in which learners are
fully engaged at the time the learning happened. Chamot (1994) also believed that
information should be selected from the environment and retained when it is important to the
learner. Therefore, information must be interesting enough for the learners to pick-up and
retain in their long term memory for future retrieval. In addition, information should also be
organized and related to what is already known, and it should be used in appropriate
contexts. Some learning strategies had been discussed by Chamot (1994) are summarizing,
deduction or induction, imagery, auditory representation and making inferences.
Game Genre - Adventure
Game Development
Top-Down Perspective
game
Short levels, simple game
Cognitive
Understanding about
directions
Deliver the content in
modular forms for
better cognitive
development
Develop the cognitive
thinking and
psychology in mental
development during
playing the game
Multimedia
Text
Graphics
Audio
Video
Game Criteria
Goals
Rules
Competition
Challenge
Fantasy
Safety
Entertainment
Multiple Levels Play
Level 1:“Small City”
o Low difficulty
o Introduction to
simple direction
Let’s
Drive
Level 2: “Medium City”
o Medium difficulty
o Introduction to
more directions
Level 3: “Big City”
o Most difficult
o Combination of
directions
o Increased
challenges and
competition
Indirect Teaching and learning
Approach
Gaming Approach
Thematic approach
Figure 1: Conceptual model for Develop educational computer games (Let‟s Drive)
Summarizing strategy is making mental, oral or written summary of information gained at
certain points in learning process. To adapt summarizing strategy, Let‟s Drive had prepared
an instruction of directions for every phase of game. Each instruction is simple and written
clearly. Let‟s Drive also adapt deduction or induction strategy where in this game the player
will have to follow some rules, if player is able to follow the rules, extra marks will be given
whereas, marks will be deducted when player is unable to follow the rules. For imagery
strategy, Let‟s Drive have stimulate mental picture for players from information and graphics
given. Mental strategy is to replay a word, phrase or piece of information. For this strategy,
Let‟s Drive includes voice and text as a form of instruction to lead the player to play correctly.
This voice will appear concurrently as the player play the game and is available throughout
the game. Making inference strategy is by using context clues to guess meaning and predict
upcoming information. Let‟s drive uses symbols that act as clues to the player so that they
can guess some meaning and predict upcoming information.
A psychiatrist, Gestalt, believes that in each learning process, students will create cognitive
structure in their memory (Norizan, 2003). Every time a learning process occurs, a student
will structure all his or her learning experience and saved all the experiences in his or her
memory. When problems occur and need to be solved, the students will retrieve
significance experience in order to help them to solve problems they are facing. For an
example, this game requires students to solve a few problems from each obstacle that have
been created for them. Each problem was design to test students‟ understanding on their
direction skills. For better understanding, this project has engaged the modular design to
deliver the content in stages, where each stage delivers a more difficult content and an
increased challenge.
This project had adopted the cognitive approach in the design and development of the
prototype (Let‟s drive).
3.2
Indirect Teaching and Learning Approach
Let‟s Drive provides a platform for an effective indirect teaching and learning environment.
Players will enjoy the game and at the same time the concepts of direction and educational
values will be adhered in them. Learning process that the learners had gone through was
not realized by the players. Each player just concentrates on getting the highest score
without realizing that the new knowledge, that is the direction, has been accumulated in
them cognitively. This platform will create tense free environment, therefore it allows
learners to enjoy themselves without realizing that they are learning something.
3.3
Game Genre: Adventure
Adventure games, strategy games and all forms of puzzle games are among good examples
of games genre that might involve cognitive elements. In most of the adventure game,
players are given brief visual or/and verbal instructions on the very basic rules of the game.
Arming with this basic knowledge, the players venture into the world of fantasy and learn
more about it. When they encounter new things, they learn to adapt it with their existing
schema by trial and error or mental reflection. The game gives hints appropriately to help
elaborating new information so that it can be connected to the knowledge network easily. In
some action games, players know only the basic control of the game and learn by making
mistakes and exploring directly in the game world. The top-down approach is effective in
computer games, as players begin with a complex and complete task, rather than small
parts of the task (Ang & Rao, 2003).
A study that has been conducted on the different type of game genre, showed that
adventure game is the most suitable genre for Let‟s Drive Game because the game needs
to focus on exploration and also involve item gathering, avoid obstacles and scoring board.
In this game development, top-down perspective is employed as it is suitable with the
capability of the game engine in making two dimensional (2D) games (GameMaker, 2008).
Top-down perspective also sometimes referred to as bird's-eye view, overhead view or
helicopter view. The view is a camera angle view used in computer and video games that
shows the player and the area around them from above.
3.4
Multimedia
Multimedia elements are fascinating people in computer games or web environments, not
only because of their power to influence cognitive and motivational processes, but especially
because of their capability to stimulate emotions, like fear or pleasure (Hermann, 2008). In
order to develop interesting educational game, multimedia elements such as text, graphic,
audio and video should be added. Let‟s Drive embedded audio in each level to increase the
players‟ excitement and also understanding. The usage of text element in Let‟s Drive has
become a major structure as it is the main medium to interact with the players (through
written text). Fun, interesting looking colour 2D graphics has been used throughout Let‟s
Drive. Combination of these multimedia elements had brought out the flavours of this game
and had attracted players to keep on playing the game.
3.5
Game Development
The development for Let‟s Drive Game adhere to the principles of gaming which
incorporated the basic gaming criteria that are goals, rules, competition, challenge, fantasy,
safety and entertainment. To consolidate with the modular presentation of knowledge for
maximum cognitive development, multiple levels game play has been employed. The
multiple levels serve as a twofold function that are as modular content delivery as well as
increased challenge of game play.
The content of the Let‟s Drive game consist of directions such as turn left, turn right, go
straight and many more as stated in the curriculum. The game design is divided into three
levels; with each level has different levels of difficulties. The names of the levels are “Small
City”, “Medium City” and the last level is the “Big City”. The names are created as such in
order to create a fantasy in the mind of the children while playing the game. Every level
consists of three tasks and the structure of this game will be illustrated using the menu
hierarchy (Figure 2).
Main menu
Level 1
Level 2
Level 3
Task 1
Task 1
Task 2
Task 2
Task 2
Task 3
Task3
Task 3
Task 1
Highest Scores
Figure 2: The hierarchy chart from the Let‟s Drive game
For each level, the player/ learner is required follow the instructions in the text that appears
at the bottom of the game screen to enable the player/learner to proceed to the next level. It
will also display a small screen area to indicate whether the user has taken the correct or the
wrong turn in the game. The victory flag shows the final destination that the user must reach.
In level 1 (Figure 3), obstacles and the road turn are few. In the game, player/learner needs
to follow the direction given while at the same time try to avoid colliding with the obstacles.
Obstacles in games are challenges which make the game an interesting piece to play.
Figure 3 : Screen shots for the first level of Let‟s Drive
In level 2 (Figure 4), obstacles and road directions become more difficult with increased
number of road turns (directions) and obstacles. More directions are being instructed for the
player/learner to be complete within the same amount of time as in Level 1.
Figure 4: Screen shots for the second level of Let‟s Drive
Third level shows the highest in terms of complexity of the directions as the number of roads,
junctions and dead end roads are increased (Figure 5). These increases the obstacles and
difficulty of the games which add more challenges and tested the player/ learner cognitive
ability to understand directions.
Figure 5: Screen shots for the third level of Let‟s Drive
The highest scores window will be displayed when the game is completed either by
successfully completing the game or when the player has finished using all the „life‟ given to
them in the game (Figure 6). User needed to write their name or nickname in the scoring
window if he or she gets top ten highest score. This feature enhance students motivation
level as they tracked their progress (Marina, 2009).
Figure 6: Screen shots for Top ten highest scores
4.0
Evaluation
A usability test has been conducted on Let‟s Drive Game using observation method [9]. A
total number of 5 children have been selected to conduct the test. The children selected are
homogenous as all of them have the same literacy level about computer application. The
test studied the effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction level of the application.
Effectiveness measured the accuracy and completeness in achieving specified goals,
efficiency measured the accuracy and completeness in terms of resource utilization, that is
the completion time while satisfaction is the feeling of freedom from discomfort, and positive
attitudes towards the use of the application (Bevan et al. 1991). Two instruments have been
developed to be used for data gathering; the observation checklist and the questionnaire. An
observation checklist has been developed to guide the researcher on items that need to be
observed during the test (Md Dahari 2008, Marina 2009). The items are about the
functionality of each buttons and interaction of the starting menu and exploration of the game
for both effectiveness and efficiency. Measurements of satisfaction are taken using post
questionnaire with children. Children are required to answer few questions on their
satisfaction after completing the game. The questions and answers are structured using a 5
point Likert scale with 1 for strongly agree and 5 for strongly disagree. All questions was
designed to get the input from the children on how they feel about the game, do they like it
and was it to easy to play or not.
The effectiveness and efficiency are measured using a simple usability metrics introduced by
Jacob Nielsen (Nielsen 2001). The metrics analyzes user's success rate. Based on the
analysis of the success rate, the level of effectiveness is 71% and the level of efficiency is
56%. The analysis on post questionnaire of satisfaction level is 82%. By averaging the rate
of effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction, the usability level is approximately 70%.
However, detail explanation about the usability test is not discussed in this paper.
5.0 Conclusion
„Let‟s Drive‟ was developed as an alternative to learning direction in English Language to
school children. Gaming approach was chosen as an approach to teach about direction as
gaming has proven to be a very attractive way to get children to hook on a material for a
longer period of time. Educational game has also proven to promote indirect learning where
learners play without realizing that they actually learning. Crawford (2003) stated that every
human being has an instinct to learn by playing. The top-down perspective of „Let‟s Drive‟
also provides the visualization of how the move from one place to another happens when the
player follow certain directions. This feature extends the capability of a text book and allows
learners to understand better through visual learning. A usability test conducted showed that
users are satisfied with the approach use in teaching about directions. Educational game
has proven to be an interesting and attractive method for learning.
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