Research of Educational Board Games on Learning Effectiveness and Flow State

Abstract

In this study, the university-wide compulsory course Information Technology Applications and Literacy at a Taiwanese university is used as an experimental curriculum. The experiment is planned over three weeks, with two hours of instruction each week; the course serves to introduce the main Arduino circuit and its peripheral modules. The control group for this experiment consists of 41 first-year university students from the Foreign Language Studies Department, while the experimental group consists of 41 first-year university students from the Economics and Management Department. The control group is taught using a lecture-based instructional method, while the experimental group is taught using the game-based learning method using two board games that were developed and designed by this study: the Arduino Board Game Icebreaker Card Activity, and Hello, Arduino! In addition, learning outcome tests and flow questionnaires were administered to students. The results of this experiment show that the board games used in this study can not only improve students’ learning outcomes, but also significantly increase students’ flow states.