This study examines the effectiveness of a collaborative support method in enhancing programming learning outcomes in a serious game. The game Code Hasp was developed to facilitate the comparison between two support methods, worked examples and a collaborative peer support approach. A total of 111 elementary school students participated, divided…

This study critically reviews sixteen empirical studies that investigate the various difficulties that primary school students encounter while learning programming through educational games. Specifically, the challenges that students face in understanding basic programming concepts and the game elements that contribute to these difficulties, as…

In a large-scale quantitative study that adopted a learning analytics approach, we searched for associations between students' activity in a game-based online mathematics learning environment and their mathematics achievements on a national standardized test. Students were active in the environment throughout the school year, and particularly…

This meta-analysis determined game-based learning's (GBL) overall effect on students' computational thinking (CT) and tested for moderators, using 28 effect sizes from 24 studies of 2,134 participants. The random effects model results showed that GBL had a significant positive overall effect on students' CT (g = 0.677, 95% confidence interval…

Computer programming is regarded as an important skill for the future. However, many K-12 students face challenges and difficulties in learning traditional text-based programming. Block-based visual programming (BVP) can reduce the difficulty of learning programming and is seen as a potential programming education tool. Nevertheless, the effects…

Serious games are considered an effective method to engage students in programming education and have been increasingly used in classrooms. An important part of the learning process with serious games involves the presentation of the new concepts and the provided support to encounter student difficulties. Although the most common approach is the…

Educational games have been increasingly used to improve students' computational thinking. However, most existing games have focused on the theoretical knowledge of computational thinking, ignoring the development of computational thinking skills. Moreover, there is a lack of integration of adaptivity into educational computer games for…

At present, environmental issues are of concern to all countries, especially for developing countries, and education on waste sorting is urgent. However, it remains a challenge to improve students' learning achievement and engagement in environmental education. Researchers have pointed out the potential of digital games for promoting students'…

This study proposed plugged and unplugged approaches for young students to simultaneously improve their interdisciplinary learning performance in English and Computational Thinking (CT). The plugged approach involved adopting educational robots to enhance CT and to provide English vocabulary and sentence practice via a board game. The unplugged…

Abundant research has tried to understand how games can be designed and used effectively to improve the learning process and to examine the correlations between digital learning games and student motivation, engagement, and knowledge retention. The current study examined the correlation between learning through digital game-based learning (DGBL)…

This meta-analysis extended the current literature regarding the effects of computer technology (CT) on mathematics achievement, with a particular focus on low-performing students. A total of 45 independent effect sizes extracted from 31 empirical studies based on a total of 2,044 low-performing students in K-12 classrooms were included in this…

Creativity and Computational Thinking (CT) have been both extensively researched in recent years. However, the associations between them are still not fully understood despite their recognition as essential competencies for the digital age. This study looks to bridge this gap by examining the association between CT and two types of creativity,…

Persistence has proven to be a great challenge in online learning environments. Gaming and interactivity have been suggested as essential features in reducing dropout and increasing persistence in online learning. Yet in interactive game-based learning environments, persistence in moving forward in the game may come at the expense of investing in…

The design and application of educational board games have been emphasized in game-based learning. The integration of educational board games and augmented reality (AR) can help provide extensive cognitive-scaffolding for learners. This study proposed a dual-scaffolding framework that integrated peer-scaffolding and cognitive-scaffolding for an AR…

The recent shift in compulsory education from ICT-focused computing curricula to informatics, digital literacy and computer science, has resulted in children being taught computing using block-based programming tools such as Scratch, with teaching that is often limited by school resources and teacher expertise. Even without these limitations,…