Using an Online Interactive Game to Enhance the Learning Outcomes for First Year Tertiary Students

Abstract

Academics acknowledge that students are often unable to link and extend first year, first semester founda- tion material throughout their undergraduate degree. The use of a pedagogically sound interactive digital game-based learning (DGBL) resource to engage first year biological science students in recalling, link- ing and applying foundation knowledge and increasing their learning outcomes has been explored. Ac- cording to the current literature there exists no evidence that DGBL resources have previously been used to address this transfer and linking of knowledge and core skills. Results from our study of student per- ceptions and student learning outcomes suggest that our creatively designed resource has effectively tar- geted a mixed cohort of students to retain, link and extend foundation knowledge. Our study also indi- cates that DGBL resources have a valid role in enabling students, many of whom are classed as “digital natives”, to demonstrate positive learning outcomes by successfully recalling and transferring unit content into new learning domains.