Students perceptions of using educational games to learn introductory programming

Abstract

Educational computer games studies experienced rapid growth due to the belief that games can offer various learning benefits being highly popular among younger generations. Programming is considered a challenging subject by students and teachers, consequently students feel less motivated to learn it. It is important to know how educational games can help to enhance our student’s motivation and learning perceptions towards Programming. This paper discusses the authors’ pilot study of undergraduate students’ perceptions towards using educational games as their learning medium using five constructs: motivation, attitudes, cognitive development, interface and expectation with 24 items. The findings indicated that most students had encouraging positive attitudes and were more motivated to learn Programming using games compared to conventional methods. The findings are hopefully will help to enrich knowledge in understanding students’ perceptions regarding educational games for learning, particularly in the Malaysian context.