Video Game Based Gamification Assessment of Problem-Solving Competence in Chemistry Education

It is essential for educators to be able to accurately assess students according to their problem-solving competencies. However, traditional assessment tools, often measure superficial skills and are not valid for assessing the context in which the knowledge and skills are applied (Shute et al., 2016). It has been shown that computer games could help educators determine not only students' current levels of problem-solving, but also students' strengths and weaknesses in a particular phase of problem-solving (Shute et al., 2016). Gamification is the use of game thinking and game procedure to engage the audience and solve problems (Zichermann, 2010). Building on this idea, the aim of this investigation is to create a video-game (based on gamification) that can be used to assess the students' performance competence in chemical problem-solving. To this end, we designed a game based on the four scales problem-solving model with three levels of proficiency (Koppelt & Tiemann, 2008). In a qualitative pre-study, think-aloud transcript and interview were applied with two 9th-grade students who played the game for 60 minutes. Based on the outcomes of the qualitative study, for the main study, two videos for each problem-solving proficiency level, a pre-post questionnaire, and think-aloud transcript will be prepared for validation of the game by an expert rating. The future finding of this study could be used to improve the validity of this assessment tool based on gamification to assess the problem-solving proficiency levels in chemistry education.