Exploring the User Experience and Effectiveness of Mobile Game-Based Learning in Higher Education

Abstract

Recent technological and societal changes have heightened the uptake of mobile educational games across all subjects and levels of education. Nevertheless, developing mobile games with a set of design guidelines in mind, does not necessarily imply they will naturally engage learners and improve the learning experience. Building on this tenet, this study aims to explore how higher education students experience learning programming principles by playing a maze-solving mobile educational game; evaluate how effective the game’s features are in terms of engaging students; and inquire how effective mobile devices are as a learning platform for teaching programming and algorithmic thinking. The overarching theme that emerged by analysing the gathered data is the need to promote ‘engagement by design’, indicating that subtle synergies are required between the technological qualities and design features of a mobile educational game, the pedagogical context, and human factors, towards achieving the desired level of learner engagement.