Development and Evaluation of a Problem Solving Oriented Game-Based Learning System

Abstract

Problem solving is an intellectual skill to achieve effective learning, and it can be widely applied to many domains. In order to improve the problem solving abilities, previous studies had shown the significant effects of game-based learning to promote students’ learning. Besides, previous researches also suggested the cognitive style plays an essential role to affect the usability of game-based learning, which significantly influences the learning effectiveness. Therefore, the differences of cognitive styles on usability evaluation are considered in this study. Two quests are designed in our game-based learning system to improve students’ problem solving abilities. The first quest is helpful to promote the mathematical logic and reasoning abilities, while the second quest is helpful to promote the verbal logical reasoning ability. 49 students from two universities in Taiwan participate in this experiment. According to the analysis of cognitive style questionnaires, there are 9 serialist participants and 28 holist participants for the valid samples. In order to improve the system design, the Nielsen's heuristic evaluation questionnaires are applied. The major result indicates that the Nielsen's eighth heuristic (aesthetic and minimalist design) is most satisfied by the participants, while the Nielsen’s sixth heuristic (recognition rather than recall) is most dissatisfied. Even some differences are observed, there are no significant differences of the usability evaluation between serialist participants and holist participants.