The Effect of Makey Makey Combined with Tangible Learning on Marine Conservation Outcomes with Attitude, and Learning Satisfaction of Rural Elementary School Students

Abstract

With the increasing ocean pollution, many schools have begun to integrate the concept of ocean protection into the curriculum to enhance students’ attention to pollution. However, rural schools are often unable to provide supplementary knowledge outside of school due to a lack of resources. Besides ocean protection, using Makey Makey is also another feature of this study. Different from normal video games, we add a tangible part to our experiment, not only because it can attract children’s attention but also because the usage of Makey Makey only need conductive material, which would be easier for rural schools to acquire. As the result, we integrate ocean pollution knowledge into a treasure-hunting game by using Scratch. The subjects of this experiment are the third graders of a rural elementary school in Tainan. The results of the study show that after accepting Makey Makey into our game, students have significant improvement in conservation rank and have high satisfaction. In the analyzation of marine conservation attitude, the level of five-level scale grows to medium-high level in post-test from moderate level in the pre-test. Represent that the attitudes of students significantly improved after receiving this educational game. Through an interview, the students think this learning method can increase relationships with teachers and classmates during the course, they also think it’s a good idea to apply game-based learning to other subjects, such as math, literature, and science. etc. It’s obvious that using this interactive marine educational game can improve their learning outcomes and learning satisfaction.