Towards a mobile serious game environment for children self-learning
Charles Gouin-Vallerand *, Susan M. Ferreira, Richard Hotte
Context (1/2)
(UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) & UNICEF, 2015).
2
Context (2/2)
The value of serious game has been recognized and vast amount of games have been designed to contribute for children’s education.
“In the past 10 years, the field of learning games has grown dramatically” (Groff, Clark-Midura, Owen, Rosenheck, & Beall, 2015)
“Serious Games (SGs) are gaining ever more interest as an instructional tool” (Arnab et al., 2015)
“Educational games are being backed up in the Technology-Enhanced Learning domain as strategies that can lead to worthy learning outcomes.” (Melero & Hernández-Leo, 2014)
3
Objectives
Developping a serious game on tablet that will teach basic of english and math for children from 4-5 years old
Designing a model based on a narrative where children have to play minigames to unlock artifacts (magical items or ingredients) to progress in the narration.
However from an HCI perspective, for a serious game to be effective, it need to be :
4
Research Team
5
Game prototype (1/5)
Learning gaming scenarios based on a RPG model :
For the purpose of our proof of concept, we developped 1 introduction narration + 3 learning mini-games and 1 bridge quest / game
6
Game prototype (2/5)
7
Game prototype (3/5)
3 mini-games
8
Game prototype (4/5)
1 bridge animation + 1 bridge activity
9
Game prototype (5/5)
Prototype was developed with Unity
Designed specifically for the Datawind Ubislate tablet (Android version 4.2)
10
Experimentation
Prototype was tested with :
Experimentation was made in a public Kindergarten on the south shore of Montreal, Canada
11
Methodology
2 researchers (1 taking notes + stats, 1 guide)
1 camera was recording over the shoulder, game logs + observation notes
12
Results - Children background
13
Results - Gaming
14
Activity 1 | 1:54 minutes |
Activity 2 | 1:52 minutes |
Activity 3 | 3:19 minutes |
Activity 4 | 5:00 minutes |
Gaming average time
Children scores on game aspects
Results - Learning
15
| Numbers | Word in English |
Pre Test | Mean = 5.5, sd = 2.61 | Mean = 2.56, sd = 1.36 |
Post Test | Mean = 5.94, sd = 2.46 | Mean = 3.12, sd = 1.59 |
Pre and Post Tests Score
Future work
16
Thank you for your attention!
Project supported by :
17
Children-Machine Interactions
Continuously developing motor skills
18
| Interaction Issues | Design recommendations / Solutions |
Touch and pointing Misses | Difficulty to touch small objects. | • Use recommended target sizes. • Increase widgets active area: out-of-bound touches |
The younger children had trouble with edge padded targets. (mobile-phones) | Align targets to edge of screen, or count edge touches. | |
Holdover touches | “Accidentally touch the screen with their other hand” | Use timing and location of touches and interface widgets to identify and ignore holdover touches. |
Touch time variations | Variations in touch time – misinterpreting actions. E.g.: double-click X two single clicks. | Less sensitivity and more robust error detection. |
Drag and drop | Difficulties with drag and drop, children 4 to 9. | Apply only for short distances |
Multi touch | Children tended to focus on the movement of one finger/target rather then on both targets | Avoid multi-touch interactions or use them with caution. (specially multi-touch drag and drop) |
Gestures | Children’s gestures were recognized more poorly then adults. E.g. Confused Gesture: plus/X, A/K. | • Train recognizers specifically to problematic pairs. • Provide visual feedback • Don’t include unfamiliar gestures. • Test new gesture in advance. |
Children-Machine Interactions
Continuously developing motor skills
•Hold only one thing at memory at time (Bruckman & Bandlow, 2002).
•Process limited amount of information: reduce the among of information on screen.
19
Cognitive aspects | Design recommendations |
Centralization: focus attention to one characteristic. | Graphical dimension of objects could reflect their importance. Make targets stand out by form and position inside a larger group. |
Symbols makes children faster and more efficient. | Symbolic graphical items could inform where and when to touch. |
Easily distracted: click on any visible feature. May repeat several times if there is a sound feedback. | Hide advanced tools |
Egocentrism: Difficulties to understand someone else’s viewpoint. Difficulties understanding others touch screen differently. | Accept different ways of touching screen as correct outputs. E.g.: Two or more fingers in contact with an object should trigger same effects as a single touch point. |
Animism: Unanimated object have conscious | Provide children with instructions to make them aware of deterioration of devices. E.g.: “Mind not to drop it because de screen may be hurt” |
Magical thinking: Associate simultaneous events with cause-effect relation | Wait some time from last touch event before showing results of some independent process |