Enhancing Educational Outcomes Through Games Based Learning: A Case Study

Games Based Learning (GBL) provides an opportunity for teachers and students to explore a range of diverse issues using a familiar and exciting medium. These issues can include solving problems, the history and development of games, social attitudes towards different games, the popularity of games and the significance of design aspects such as colour, characterisation and layout. This paper will focus on the development, delivery and outcomes of a gaming unit for 14 year old boys. Two main areas were addressed within this unit. Firstly, the social influences that impact on games and their development and the gaming culture and secondly, the development of the student IT skills and knowledge of the basic programming structures. Critical thinking and planning skills can be addressed successfully using games. The familiarity of the environment provides a more comfortable mode for student discussion. This may include social perceptions, game cultures such as World of Warcraft, classifications and parental perceptions. Research shows that boys are less likely to engage in personal or opinionative discussion. By utilising an environment that is comfortable, students are more inclined to express and support their opinions. Game development is an effective tool for teaching a range of skills in computer science. The use of game engines provides a structured framework with a visual interface that allows greater focus on code structure and sequence. Students were able to simultaneously develop the interface and the code and evaluate and check as they developed their game with immediate feedback. Project management techniques can be incorporated to effectively deal with and manage time constraints. Throughout the duration of the unit data was collected from students. Analysis of this data, anecdotal evidence and result; from student projects suggest that the use of games as a learning medium approach was successful in increasing motivation and understanding. The games medium also served to help develop student self confidence and problem solving skills.