Education Supported by Games Even in University?

Abstract

Games are part of our lives and are not a waste of time because everyone needs intellectual experiences and development and the joy of playing. Multiplayer games play a role in the development of social connections too. Computer games made for educational purposes are called edutainment. Edutainment is part of gamification, which became known in 2010, and it means using game elements in other areas of life. In my chapter, besides providing some examples of mathematics and logic games and puzzles that proved to be successful when introduced in my university classes, I will deal with how to incorporate edutainment applications into university courses. In the broader spectrum of computer science, my research is focused on the subjects of “Algorithms and Data Structures” and “Programming methods” although some points and results can be applied to secondary school classes as well.

1. Introduction

A game is an experience, a pleasure, a voluntary, free activity for pleasure where the driving force is the player’s enthusiasm. There are numerous studies (e.g., [1, 2]) on the social benefits of the game. It plays a significant role in the development of social relationships. It builds character. It teaches the ability to win or lose, play by the rules, cooperate, and be self-disciplined. These are skills that you need in life.

The importance of the educational role of the game has been recognized since antiquity. The use of the game in the classroom has a motivating factor. It has a positive effect on the relationship between teacher and student, as well as on the student’s active participation in the lesson.

Robert O. Brinkerhoff’s study [3] has shown that participants in traditional training (methodology and environment) do not achieve sustainable behavioral change at 85% of participants. This means that 10 people out of 12 are unnecessarily involved in various pieces of training because the training is not followed by a lasting result. However, if the new knowledge of the learning process can relate to an appropriate experience, it strongly contributes to the deepening and later recalls of knowledge.

Today, games are increasingly being used successfully in the classroom (e.g., [4, 5]). Several concepts have emerged over the past decades to identify the use of digital games for educational purposes, but their precise definitions are not clear [6]. One frequently used term is “edutainment,” which means short for entertaining teaching and learning. After the turn of the millennium, new terms such as “serious games” or “digital game-based learning” have spread. Both terms refer to the fact that the purpose of these games is to facilitate teaching-learning processes. Their aim is not to entertain, but that does not necessarily mean they are not enjoyable [7]. These applications are in many areas of life: industrial, military, scientific discoveries, healthcare, engineering, religion, politics, and, of course, formal education [8]. These digital games are interactive, based on a set of rules, aim to achieve some goal that challenges the player, and provide continuous feedback on progress in the game [9].

In my chapter, I approach games with two goals. First, I will deal with logic games, which can also be as programming tasks. In the second part of my chapter, I would like to show examples of how easy it is to create simple games, even for a theoretical subject, which is a great help to students in understanding, acquiring, and deepening their knowledge.

2. Games and puzzles in class work

Logic games are goal-bound and related to winning and competition. The game is a series of steps taken according to a well-defined set of rules, the goal and result of which is one or more precisely defined states, which means victory for one of the parties. In these games, chance plays no role at all. The outcome of the games depends more or less on the player’s skill. In some games, there is only a winner or loser, while in others, draw is possible.

The goal of logic games is to help students to find a winning strategy. Students need to play with each other too, but one of the disadvantages of playing with each other is that students win not only when they find out the winning strategy but also when their partner plays badly. A well-programmed computer version of the game can help overcome this disadvantage.

Using logic games emphasizes experiential learning and observation skills that also develop problem-solving thinking, which we need more and more in an ever faster-changing world. According to Lénárd, a problem is any situation in which the way to achieve some goal is hidden from us [10]. Pólya, who was the creator of heuristics, defines problem-solving as [11] “The solution of any problem involves finding a way out of some difficult situation, circumventing some obstacle, reaching some goal that could not otherwise be achieved directly.” The problem-based learning (PBL) is a teaching method and, according to some researchers (e.g., Walton, Matthews), a general teaching strategy that has been dealt with since the mid-twentieth century but has not yet been widely adopted in education [12]. The roots of PBL can be traced back to John Dewey, who believed that children should prepare for life. In traditional schooling, the child only learns knowledge but does not learn the most important thing: how to acquire knowledge. In life, however, there is no ready knowledge [13]. Problem-based learning is defined by Barrows as [14] “A conception of knowledge, understanding, and education that is profoundly different from the more usual concept underlying subject-based learning.” Several articles (e.g., [15]) discuss the benefits of using PBL (e.g., motivating; or helping to develop competencies that are neglected in traditional education but are very important in life). An example of a problem might be determining the winning strategy of a logic game. Deductive reasoning plays a significant role in finding a winning strategy.

After some mathematical and logical games, students usually formulate conjectures and hypotheses that can be proved or disproved. The games also teach discipline and accuracy, which are needed in mathematics, programming, and real life [16].

Games and puzzles are typical forms of the interactive use of computers while displaying several qualities of computational thinking. Various problem-solving methods and heuristics of mathematics and information technology are inherent to any aptly compiled series of games and puzzles, hence their privileged role in modern pedagogy [17].

The aim of the logic games is not only to develop the student’s intellectual abilities but also to spend their free time in a meaningful and enjoyable way, to socialize, to strengthen sociability, to compete regularly, and to foster traditions [18].

Logic games are also an excellent tool for teaching programming. I have used the games presented below in the Programming Methods course of the BSc in Computer Science Teacher training. This course was in the first semester and aimed at acquiring programming skills. As an input, no prior knowledge of programming is required. Therefore, the examples presented are applicable not only in higher education but also in public education.

2.1 Some logic games

2.1.1 Tower of Hanoi

Perhaps one of the best-known and most widely used games in education is the Towers of Hanoi, which is used to teach recursion. The exercise, which is also known as the Towers of Brahma, or the doomsday puzzle, is as follows [19]: put all the discs on the first rod onto the second one. There are two important rules: (1) you can only move one disc at a time, and (2) no bigger disc can get on top of a smaller one.

This game was invented by Édouard Lucas, a French mathematician, in 1883. His inspiration was a legend that at the time of the creation of the world, Brahma’s monks started playing a 64-disc version of the Tower of Hanoi game. According to the legend, when the monks are finished stacking the discs onto the second rod, the monastery collapses, and our world ceases to exist.

For the precise formal specification of the task, we can introduce the Hanoi (n, i, j) predicate in which n is the number of discs, i is the source, and j is the destination of the move. The original problem then becomes formalized as Hanoi (64, 1, 2).

The solution has the following steps (Figure 1):

Figure 1.

The structogram of the solution of the game.

If there is one disc, lift the disc from rod I and put it onto rod j, or in other words, use the function move (i, j).

If there is more than one:

Move the top n-1 discs from the first rod to the third one: Hanoi (n-1, i, n-i-j).

Move the largest disc from the first rod to the second one: move (i, j).

Move the top n-1 discs from the third rod to the second one: Hanoi (n-1, n-i-j, j).

Playing through the game, increasing the number of discs one at a time, students will understand the idea of induction. If we explain how a previous iteration can serve as a model for calculating with an increased number of discs, the idea of recursion is also introduced and understood. The solution illustrates the “divide and conquer” principle in program design along with recursion. Summarizing, by using this game, skills like algorithmic thinking, inductive inference, generalization, and abstraction are developed.

2.1.2 Guess my number

Almost all of us know the game that starts with the following question: Guess the number I have thought between 1 and 100. With at least how many questions can you guess for sure? The idea behind the solution is halving intervals, which is an excellent way to demonstrate the theorem of logarithmic search. The solution will be 7 because ${\log }_{2}100=6,6<7.$

Perhaps a more difficult and less familiar version of the task is to guess the number by writing down all the questions in advance and having no control over the order in which the guesser looks at the questions and answers them. Are seven questions enough in this case, or do we need more questions?

This task can be answered if we produce some cards in advance, and our questions are whether it is on the given card. If we make the cards skillfully, then 7 questions are still enough. But how do we create our card so that we can guess the number by looking at it? The binary number system is used for the solution. The first digit of each card will be a power of two. The card contains the numbers whose binary number is one in the given position. In this way, the thought number is obtained by adding the first numbers of the cards for which we received the answer that the thought number is on the card. (The cards are shown in Figure 2a.)

Figure 2.

The cards and the structogram of creating the cards.

Making the cards can be a simple programming task. In this case, the guessing game is not limited to 100, but to n. We do not use the binary numeral system when creating the program. It is easier if we notice some regularity about the numbers on the number cards. (The algorithm for creating the cards is shown in Figure 2b.)

The task can be made even more difficult by leaving the world of numbers and choosing another topic. I attempted to do this in the Challenge online competition that was aimed at primary school students and also my first-year university students. The chosen topic was Olympic sports. The best answer to 5 questions listed 25 sports. (The solution is shown at the following link: https://people.inf.elte.hu/kinga/barkochba.png.).

3. Gamification and edutainment

Computer games made for educational purposes are called edutainment. Edutainment, a portmanteau of the words “education” and “entertainment,” refers to technologies and software products that combine education with entertainment in some way. In the digital age, many of these products and technologies seek to make education more attractive to young people and students [20].

Educational technology takes many forms. A streaming video platform, a prepackaged learning product, or an app for a mobile phone can be classified as edutainment. Such instructional applications are very effective in practicing tedious routine tasks (e.g., in mathematics operations with fractions) or in very complex concepts (such as the operation of an ecosystem). Therefore, edutainment can be a significant issue in the development of modern digital and hybrid learning materials for classroom and supplementary educational use [20].

Edutainment is a subset of gamification. The concept of gamification in the public mind appeared in the 2000s and has become popular since 2010, but its origins can be traced far back. Fuchs [21] found examples of the use of gamification in the army dating back to early Roman times.

The most accepted definition of gamification is “the use of game elements in a non-gaming context” [22].

Two very important concepts appear in the definitions of gamification: game elements and game mechanisms, which are often called game design techniques. Game elements refer to tools taken from traditional and video games and game mechanisms to the application of the operating principle.

Of course, tools will work effectively only if the mechanisms of the game are given: A game is a voluntary, promising success, transparent, and properly delimited (providing proper time).

The “out-of-game context” term in the definition implies that the purpose of the game is different from that of gamification. The biggest difference between game and gamification is that a game is an activity providing entertainment or amusement, whereas the purpose of gamification is to do something to achieve a predefined goal in real life.

3.1 The appearance of edutainment in “Algorithms and Data Structures” practical university course

In a previous semester, I supplemented my practical lessons with edutainment applications. These included Kahoot quizzes that I usually used for summarizing. As it was so popular with students, last semester I decided to create a Kahoot quiz for each of my classes. I continued this initiative this semester as well, and in addition, I also introduced the use of Kahoot quizzes to check class attendance. I find the Kahoot repetition at the beginning of the lesson very useful as it is easy to use and does not take too much time, but the students like it. It spices up the lesson, briefly summarizes what they learned in the previous lesson, and confronts the students with their gaps, and after using them, the students tend to pay more attention. In addition, it sends me feedback on the success of the answers to each question and the student’s performance. To make the game more interesting, the students who solve the most questions correctly get 1 extra point, which is added to their test score.

Kahoot is a well-known and popular quiz-maker application that I presented in detail in my previous work [23]. I will therefore not describe its use here. However, based on my experience, I recommend taking the following aspects into account [23].

• First, I consider it important that a Kahoot quiz is not too long and does not want to repeat too much knowledge. (A quiz for me consists of 5–7 questions.) A Kahoot that is too long becomes boring, takes a lot of time out of the lesson, and contains more information than the students can remember, so it is not effective.

• It is important to pay attention to the time limit. If the question is too long, then more time should be allocated, but by overestimating the question and allocating more time than necessary, the competitive spirit is reduced and thus the students’ motivation.

• One of Kahoot’s drawbacks is that it shows the images in a small size. An image is at its largest when it is lying flat, and its aspect ratio is closest to 350 × 220.

I researched the students’ feedback using anonymous questionnaires that were filled out by 62 students. (17 of them were English-speaking and 45 were Hungarian-speaking students.) Its result can be seen in Figure 3.

Figure 3.

Students feedback on the Kahoot.

The question “How much do you like that we repeat with Kahoot at the beginning of the class?” was rated on a five-point scale with an average of 4.44, a standard deviation of 1.07, a mode, and a median of 5. (The Hungarian students rated it with an average of 4.6, while English students rated it with an average of 4).

The usefulness of the Kahoot repetitions was similarly rated, with an average of 4.37 (Hungarian students scoring 4.53 and English students 3.94), a standard deviation of 1.01, a mode, and a median of 5.

The idea that checking class attendance with Kahoot was rated with an average of 3.97, a standard deviation of 1.33, a mode, and a median of 5. This was the only question that the English-speaking students rated well (4.11) than the Hungarian-speaking (3.91) students.

And finally, the idea that students could earn extra points with Kahoot didn’t appeal to the students as I thought it would. They rated it with an average of 4.31, a standard deviation of 1.25, a mode, and a median of 5.

The students had the opportunity to write down their opinions. I received a total of 20 text opinions (that’s about a third of the students), which I was very happy about as it meant that almost a third of the students thought it was important to evaluate them textually as well. Some opinions about it: “It’s a really smart choice to take attendance with Kahoot because in this way we don’t lose time for it, furthermore we can get extra points;” “I think it’s a great way to repeat what you’ve learned in the previous class, rather than just starting the next material;” “Kahoot gives extra motivation to prepare for class after class;” “Fun and cool

.”

Based on student feedback, I will use Kahoot in my other classes to check class attendance.

3.2 The appearance of edutainment in “Algorithms and Data Structures” lecture university course

My previous research was about the gamification of practical lessons. Based on my own and others’ experiences, the use of gamification elements has a positive effect on student motivation, which leads to a deeper knowledge of the material.

My current research is about the gamification of lectures. In contrast to practical classes, lectures are more difficult to activate students, as we have 300 students at a time instead of 20. If we use a presentation, the vast majority of students do not take notes, as the presentation is usually downloadable. For this reason, several of my colleagues returned to traditional blackboard lectures, but this did not bring the appropriate student activity either. Unfortunately, many students complain that the explanation is told to the board, so they do not hear much of it, and it is also difficult to write down the material, so it is even more difficult to pay attention to the explanation.

A further problem is that the lecture material is generally more theoretical than the practice, with more definitions, theorems, and proofs, which makes it much harder to hold the student’s sustained attention. Many students fall behind in the first half of the lecture and from then on do not pay attention or try to re-engage with the lesson. Since the assessment of the subject is an exam during the exam period, students do not even take much care to understand it during the study period. And the backlog is increasing more and more, so it takes much more time to master the knowledge during exam time. This is why I started to expand the course with edutainment applications.

I have created an edutainment application for each lesson which is optional. These apps are short games purposed to help you review and understand the lesson material. As they are not long, they are not suitable for learning the whole lesson, but they are excellent for highlighting, reinforcing, or illustrating them with examples of some of the most important knowledge of the lesson. A further advantage of its brevity is that the highlighted parts are just so long for the students to remember. I hope that the short games are motivating enough for them to engage with it so that they come to the next lesson with some prior knowledge that will help them to understand more of the lecture.

My longer-term goal is that when learning for the exam, they will already have some prior knowledge to help them learn. Because they will not be unfamiliar with the material, they will be able to master it more easily and more deeply in less time.

Of course, there will be students who will play these games during the exam period. In this case, the mid-semester benefits will not be applied, but they will still help with the learning process.

When creating the games, I tried to use as many images as possible, thereby favoring students with a visual style. I think that today’s world is becoming more and more visual, so there are more and more people who can understand the material more easily with the help of a picture. (These images are usually also included in the lecture.)

The app for the first lecture was viewed by 55 people in the first week, which means 17.2% participation in the 307 people’s lecture. Of course, this rate is not entirely true, as some of the 307 students did not attend the lecture (due to class collision or exemption), and there are certainly students who opened the app more than once. The game for the second lecture was viewed by 44 people; it means a 14% attendance rate. However, the viewing of games does not stop after a week; currently (at 2/3 of the semester), these apps are at 123 (40%) and 128 (41.7%) views. All these numbers may not seem so high, but considering that there is no exam period yet, there is no assessment yet, so there is no need to learn the material yet, I think these are not bad rates.

I was curious to know the students’ opinions that I collected through an online questionnaire. A total of 119 students filled in the questionnaire and rated the games on a five-point Likert scale with an average score of 4.52 (with a standard deviation of 0.7, a mode, and a median of 5) (Figure 4a). So far, 114 out of 119 students (95.8%) have been helped by the apps in their learning (Figure 4b). The students could also write opinions about the games, some of which were: “It playfully teaches useful basics. It is very good, we should have similar games in more subjects;” “It helped me to review not only the practice but also the lecture notes;” “I liked that it was specific to the course material.” Text responses also revealed that some students do not attend the lecture and do not read the notes, but open the game and then watch the presentation of the lecture to solve the game.

Figure 4.

Students feedback on the apps.

As I introduced my innovation this semester, I do not know yet how it will affect my exam grades.

In this semester, I will make 12 games for the lecture. In the following, I will present some of these that I have already created.

3.3 Presentation of some edutainment applications

Nowadays, there are a lot of free interactive curriculum maker applications that are very easy to use. (Some of which I have presented in Edutainment in Education article [24]).

I created my edutainment applications using LearningApps. I like it because LearningApps.org is a versatile tool for teachers. LearningApps.org is a Web 2.0 interactive multimedia application, to support learning and teaching processes with small interactive modules. We can use it without registration, but after free registration, we have much more control over our blocks (called Apps) and our classes [25]. It is very easy to use with a walkthrough tutorial on the home page explaining all of the features. I can create your activities from scratch using one of the templates provided or you can adapt activities already created. There are games and quizzes such as matching, identifying, categorizing, gap-filling, crosswords, filling in answers, ordering, putting things on a line, and multiple-choice tasks [26].

3.3.1 The millionaire game

In the first lecture, we covered several topics. In addition to introducing basic concepts and notation, we dealt with the time complexity in more detail and started the topic of sorting. “The Millionaire Game” app is a great opportunity for repeating this type of lesson.

The App is a 6-question quiz, embedded in a game. The difficulty is that with a wrong answer, you lose and must start the game from the beginning. The home screen (Figure 5b) shows 6 values, each of them hiding a task. There are four possible answers to a question (Figure 5a), of which only one is correct. If you find the correct answer, return to the home screen, where the diamond moves up one value; that is, you continue to the next question. If you give a wrong answer, the correct answer can be seen, but the game is lost (Figure 6a); that is, it ends. The game is won if all the questions are answered correctly (Figure 6b).

Figure 5.

A question of the millionaire game, and the home screen.

Figure 6.

The end of the millionaire game by losing, or by winning.

I was afraid to create “The Millionaire Game” type app because I thought that it would frustrate the students if they made a mistake on the last question. But it does not frustrate them; it motivates them to solve the task correctly. Meanwhile, going through the first questions several times, they unconsciously learn the answers.

According to the questionnaire, this game was one of the most popular, with students rating it 4.62 on average (they only rated it with fives and fours), and it helped all students but one to learn. The game received some text comments, some of which were “The gamified approach is fun;” “My little boy enjoyed it and ask me to search for tasks on the LearningApps that were suitable for him;” “I think it’s a good idea because, in case of a mistake, the repeated questions help to memorize it.”

As the feedback showed that the students liked this type of game, I also created “The Millionaire Game” app for a future lecture.

3.3.2 Group assignment

To practice elementary data structures, I created a group assignment game. The app exercises the knowledge of the array, the queue, the simple one-way linked list, and the one-way list with a header node. At the beginning of the game, these four groups appear in different colors (Figure 7a). The cards (24) are visible in the middle, which you need to drag into the right group. If the cards run out (or if you want to stop gaming), the solution can be checked by clicking on the checkmark in the blue circle in the lower right corner of the screen. The correct solutions are given a green frame; the incorrect ones are given a red frame (Figure 7b).

Figure 7.

Group assignment start and end screen.

Some cards contain images; others contain important properties of the data structures (e.g., time complexity, when to use, and advantages over other data structures).

This is the game that most students dealt with so far. In the questionnaire, students rated the game with an average score of 4.51, and all said it helped them to learn. The app received some text comments, some of which read like this: “I liked that it was specific to the curriculum. I would highlight that the (previous) answers were visible throughout;” “It was useful, I think it was a good summary of the similarities and differences between the data structures.“.

Feedback from students confirmed that this type of app is useful because it is easy to give a visual example, which is increasingly important for today’s generations. Based on the feedback, I will decrease the number of the cards.

3.3.3 Matching pairs

To practice the two-way lists, I created a matching pairs game. One-half of the pairs is a picture, and the other half is an explanation of the picture. There are eight pairs in total; two pairs represent the types of two-way lists, and six represent the structograms of its operations. As the images are quite small, clicking on them will enlarge them so that they are visible. Initially, all the cards are on a virtual corkboard, with one-half of the pairs with an orange angle and the other half with a blue pin (Figure 8a). The cards can be matched in any order, starting with the easiest one you know for sure and finishing with the hardest one. When marching, you must take one of the cards to its pair. If you did well and found a pair, then the members of the pair are linked, given a green frame (Figure 8d), and then disappear from the board. If not, the cards get a red frame (Figure 8c); then, you can take them apart with one click to continue the game. The game is over when all the cards have been matched; that is, they have disappeared from the board. A congratulatory message (Figure 8b) will then be received.

Figure 8.

Matching pairs start and end screen and an example of a bad and a good pair.

This game has been rated the most and in the most different ways. The average rating was 4.29 with a standard deviation of 0.96. The app also received some text comments, one of which reads: “I liked that the concepts and their explanations were visualized in one place, at the same time.” The game also received a constructive opinion: “I liked it, I think it would be even better if we could see all the parties together after the successful solution.”

Based on the feedback, I modified the app afterward, so you do not get immediate feedback about the pairing, but your pairs do not disappear in the end (Figures 9 and 10).

Figure 9.

Matching pairs: Game over for good solutions.

Figure 10.

Matching pairs: Game over for bad solutions.

3.3.4 Crossword

To practice the basic concepts of the binary tree, I created a crossword puzzle with 13 questions, 4 horizontally and 9 vertically. The question can be solved in any order, with the help of the letters already filled in (Figure 11b). When checking, the letters that are filled in correctly turn green, and the incorrect ones turn red (Figure 11c). If you have solved the crossword correctly (Figure 11a), a new word as a solution will be received.

Figure 11.

Crossword well-filled end screen, a question, and an example of a bad solution.

Based on the questionnaire, this game was the most successful, with an average score of 4.8. The student only rated it with fives and fours, and it helped all students to learn. It is clear from the comments that the students liked the app. (“I enjoyed this one, I liked the tree in the background and the questions made sense, but you had to know the concepts.”)

Feedback from students confirmed that this type of app is useful, because playful enough for students to take out their notes and review important concepts. I plan to innovate similarly in my other subjects in the future, and based on the feedback I have received, I will use this type of app there as well.

4. Summary

Experience-based learning builds on our curiosity as a natural component of our human operation. The drive is a very strong urge to accompany us from our childhood. There may be a lot of hindrances in the learning process, such as lack of motivation or disinterest. However, using games in teaching can turn our knowledge into a problem-solving action; then, we can be a success [27].

In my chapter, I approach games with two purposes.

First, I have dealt with logic games that are suitable for programming tasks. The featured games are examples of how logical games can use to teach programming. There are a vast number of games that can be used in secondary school or university education. Although I have approached the application of games with a programming focus, the scope of the application can be extended; that is, they can be used in other areas as well.

The presented games are not new, but they can still be new to many students as they have not necessarily seen them before in this digital age. These games can be applied with great success in teaching certain concepts by helping the development of problem-oriented thinking.

In the second part of my chapter, I wanted to show examples of simple games that can be created, even for a theoretical subject, which can greatly help students to understand, master, and deepen their knowledge. This section is mainly of pedagogical importance; although I have shown examples within the areas of computer science, the methods I have presented are not only related to computer science but can be applied to the teaching of any subject.

In this section, I have created some edutainment applications for the “Algorithms and Data Structures” university lecture and practice courses, and I also have researched the student’s opinions.

The high participation of students in the survey and their feedback confirmed that there was a place for the use of gamification not only in public education but also in higher education.