A Review of Games Designed to Improve Computer Programming Competencies

A Review of Games Designed to Improve Computer Programming

Competencies

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Adilson VahldickAntónio José MendesMaria José Marcelino

Centre of Informatics and SystemsUniversity of Coimbra

2014 Frontiers in Education Conference

A Review of Games Designed to Improve Introductory Computer Programming Competencies

1. Motivation

2. Research questions and methodology

3. Results

4. Discussion

5. Conclusions

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Agenda


1. Motivation


3. Results

4. Discussion

5. Conclusions

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Agenda


• Failure and dropout rates in introductory computer programming courses

• Engagement on extra classroom activities

• Students have a lack of motivation

• Games …• are fun and entertain

• don’t require special training or take a course to learn to play

• Games in education• missions are characterized as learning tasks

• feedback by missions

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Motivation (1 of 2)


• Two approaches in universities:• Programming small games• Playing games

• In this paper, we …• Identify digital games available to support introductory computer programming• Classify them according to the learning activities they support

• We want to • Help teachers to decide or select games• Find new development opportunities

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Motivation (2 of 2)


1. Motivation


3. Results

4. Discussion

5. Conclusions

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Agenda


1. How many and which are the games available to assist introductory programming learning published in literature or on the web after 2000?

2. Which are the abilities and topics covered by these games?

3. What features are missing to better support introductory programming learning?

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Research Questions


• Techniques application of systematic literature review• Searched and scanned the papers describing games used, proposed or

developed to support introductory programming learning

• Searched “game” and “programming” in AppStore, Google Play, Flash Games, on the web, list of games available in GamaSutra

• Read the paper or web page, and played the game when was available

• Classified the games according to their kind, activities, tasks and subjects covered

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Research Methodology (1 of 2)


• Which kind of solution did we not consider in this work ?

• Puzzles that improve reasoning, but not related to introductory programming knowledge

• Environments to develop animation or games, as Scratch and Alice

• Games that require teachers to manually evaluate solutions or answers

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Research Methodology (2 of 2)


1. Motivation


3. Results

4. Discussion

5. Conclusions

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Agenda


• LOGO-Like

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Types of Games (1 of 3)

Program your robot code.org


• Adventure Games

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Code CombatCode Spells


• General Puzzles

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Entrando pelo cano (Entering the pipe)Machinist-Fabrique


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List of games


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Results (1 of 6)

19 Games

8 Games

13 Games

Classification by type


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Results (2 of 6)

Classification by competencyComprehension:Match, fill-blank, choice one instruction to complete code.

Writing:Code or drag&drop blocks to write a program.

Debugging:Track and assess changes in variable values, fix lines to make the program work, change parameters of conditional or repetition structures.

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35

Comprehension Writing Debugging

LOGO-Like Adventure General


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Results (3 of 6)

0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20

Strings

Expressions

Simple I/O

Arrays

Variables

Recursion

Conditional and iteractive

Classification by subject


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Results (4 of 6)

Classification by platform

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Win Web iOS Android Linux Java ?


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Results (5 of 6)

Classification by programming language

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Visualblocks

Textualblocks

Java Proprietary C++ C C# JavaScript Ruby Ocaml Ada Compalgo Configuredby teacher


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Results (6 of 6)

Classification by availability

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Papers Web Both


1. Motivation


3. Results

4. Discussion

5. Conclusions

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Agenda


• Availability: First practical consideration of the teacher

• Teachers prefer to select a game that supports the same programming language adopted in the course

• One uses an external tool responsible to compile and execute the program

• One allows selection among 6 programming languages

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Discussion (1 of 2)


• Resources according the competencies:• Comprehension competency can be applied as learning reinforcement or

concepts visualization

• Debugging have essentially bug fix and change parameters tasks

• Writing games are focused on problems solving tasks from scratch

• The competency of debugging is also naturally practiced because the games expose the state of the variables through animation of character’s action

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Discussion (2 of 2)


1. Motivation


3. Results

4. Discussion

5. Conclusions

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Agenda


1. How many and which are the games available to assist introductory programming learning published in literature or on the web after 2000?

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Conclusions (1 of 3)

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Papers Web Both

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Comprehension Writing Debugging



2. Which are the abilities and topics covered by these games?

• Classification by competency (comprehension, writing and debugging)

• Classification by the topics covered (conditional and iterative, recursion, …)

• In general terms, LOGO-like type is more adequate to algorithmic reasoning development (writing competency) because they promotes intensive problem solving practice

• All the adventure games in writing competency classification use code to write programs

• All debugging competency are adventure games

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3. What features are missing to better support introductory programming learning? (Ideas to develop a game)

• Only two games allowing more than one programming language

• No games adapts how the program is written from blocks to code, in other words, from novice to expert students

• No games support learning during the gameplay experience. They only give feedback after the mission ends

• Half of the games aren’t available to use

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A Review of Games Designed to Improve Introductory Computer

Programming Competencies

Adilson Vahldick

[email protected]

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Thank You !!! Questions ?

A Review of Games Designed to Improve Computer Programming Competencies

Education

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