Developing digital game based learning of history in school, Hyderabad Pakistan

Abstract

Technological advancements have created great impact on the human lives. People have become more prone towards technological solutions rather than the traditional ones in almost every field of life, including education. Besides just books, other multimedia-based resources are also being referred by teachers and students for effective learning. Online games and tutorials are also one way to improve one’s capability and learning. Games can boost creativity and help educators remain active. Digital Game Based Learning (DGBL) is a concept where games can be used for learning purpose in classroom. This research work focuses on the classroom learning of History based subjects with interaction and fun. The main objective of the research is to design a model for the history-based games and also the development of game prototype. At initial stages, 51 components from five existing frameworks and models were identified, out of which four are generic and one is history-based model. These 51 identified components were logically grouped together within and across the framework/model and got 13 components. These 13 components were then placed in the Input Process Output (IPO) model to design the proposed model. Next objective is to develop the prototype for the game. For this, a game prototype was developed for the history course considering the curriculum of the eighth class. In order to measure the more authenticated impacts, two approaches were used for evaluation i.e. first, the experimental evaluation through the students of the course and second, the explanatory evaluation though the interviews from the teachers of the course. The experimental evaluation of the game was conducted with the students of the eighth grade in the city of Hyderabad, Sindh, Pakistan. Pretest-posttest design has been used for the experimental setup. This research design has been used in order to measure the impact of knowledge gained from traditional teacher - based approach in comparison with the proposed intervention. In experimental evaluation, class tests were conducted before and after lecture to measure the effect of both the methods. A total of 117 tests for pretest of teacher approach, 117 tests for the pretest of game approach, 117 tests for the posttest of teacher and 117 tests for the posttest of game approach were conducted. T-Tests, correlation, SPANOVA and 2-way ANOVA have been performed. T-Tests have shown the difference in the means results of posttest of teacher and game approach. The Levene’s test for equality of variance gives significance (2-tailed) value of 0.08, which shows significant difference for the posttest of game and teacher approach. The test of between-subject effect gives significance value of 0.07 for the groups where F (4,216) = 2.466. Pearson correlation also shows significance value of 0.031 with r = 0.21. the correlation suggests that for the posttest in both groups there is significant difference with weak correlation, i.e. posttest in one group does not increase. These statistical tests have proven that students in the game group scored more than the students in the teacher group. For the explanatory evaluation, qualitative analysis of the interviews conducted from the teachers of history course, has been performed. It can be witnessed from the findings of this research that there has been the positive impact on the classroom learning of secondary school students. It is expected that with the use of this tool in schools, teachers can also deliver their lectures more effectively and students will gain more interest in the subject.