Using educational games in learning introductory Programming: A pilot study on students' perceptions

Abstract

Studies of using games for learning have being widely discussed in various literatures. This is due to believes that educational games (EG) can offer many learning benefits such as motivation, engagement and fun. Learning Programming requires many skills such as logical thinking and problem solving as well as understanding of abstract concepts. As a result, many students found that Programming is a challenging subject which resulted in low motivation to study the subject. Thus, it is worth to study how educational games help to enhance our students learning attitude towards Programming. This paper will discuss on our pilot study of students' perceptions towards using educational games as their learning medium. Findings indicated that the attitude of most students are positive and they are also more motivated to learn Programming by using games compared to conventional method. Hopefully, this research provides some insights to understand our students' perceptions regarding educational games usage in their learning. © 2010 IEEE.