A Browser-based Educational Game with Adaptivity

Recent reviews have shown that the use of educational games during the learning procedure indicates significant growth. Browser-based games are one type of educational games. In this paper, an online educational game concerning arithmetic in elementary school is introduced. The game consists of a main platform and several mini educational games. The main target is to explore several locations and retrieve various items by solving math games. The students’ answers define the difficulty level of the educational minigames and generate error diagnosis. In this way, student knowledge assessment is performed and identification of possible mathematical weaknesses is obtained. Introduction Computer games play a significant part, not only in children’s life but in adolescents’ culture as well (Virvou, Manos, & Katsionis, 2008). The average time a person spends playing computer games during a regular school day is two hours and a half (Mysirlaki & Paraskeva, 2007). On the other hand, studies indicate that use of educational games has been dramatically increased (Coştu, Aydınb, & Filiz, 2009). Educational games’ main objective is to assist students in learning a skill while commercial games aim to entertain. Studies have shown the combination of education and digital gaming may positively influence on students’ thinking as they increase the feeling of fun while learning (Najdi & Sheikh, 2012). They can capitalize on students’ enthusiasm and serve as a motivation for their learning (Polycarpou et al., 2010). Browser-based educational games are one type of educational games. A browser-based game is a computer game played over the Internet using standard web technologies. The games are often free to play and do not require any client software installed apart from a web browser. Therefore, they are usually more accessible and affordable for the students. However, only few studies are encountered on the use of browser-based educational games in literature (Coştu, Aydın, & Filiz, 2009). Researchers state that educational games can be used in subjects such as science, math, medicine, language learning and problem solving (Bayirtepe & Tuzun, 2007). In particular, it is noted that computer games are strong motivational tools for math lessons. This is a very important observation if someone takes into account the fact that many students often perceive mathematics as an unpleasant subject (Sedig, 2008). A subject that can be associated with educational games is arithmetic. ICICTE 2013 Proceedings 2013 376 Findings have shown that fluency in the basic arithmetic skills of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division contribute to help students to improve their skills in mathematics (Sahasrabudhe, Shah, Thakkar, Thakkar, & Iyer, 2012). Fluency in math can be obtained by giving students the opportunity to practice continuously. Moreover, researchers have proposed encompassing adaptive features to the development of educational games (Peirce, Conlan, & Wade, 2008). An adaptive game may be used to examine and determine students’ knowledge levels. It can also identify students’ possible weaknesses on specific problem types and help them overcome them. The game can adapt to students’ needs and provide valid assessment information to students and teachers. In this paper, we present a browser-based educational game that is associated to the context of arithmetic. We have implemented a user-modeling component that determines the knowledge level of students and, therefore, adds adaptive features in the game in order to help students overcome their difficulties in specific arithmetic concepts.