Slides presented in FIE 2014

1. A Review of Games Designed to Improve Computer Programming Competencies
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Adilson Vahldick
António José Mendes
Maria José Marcelino
Centre of Informatics and Systems
University of Coimbra
2014 Frontiers in Education Conference

2. A Review of Games Designed to Improve Introductory Computer Programming Competencies
1.Motivation
2.Research questions and methodology
3.Results
4.Discussion
5.Conclusions
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Agenda

3. A Review of Games Designed to Improve Introductory Computer Programming Competencies
1.Motivation
2.Research questions and methodology
3.Results
4.Discussion
5.Conclusions
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Agenda

4. A Review of Games Designed to Improve Introductory Computer Programming Competencies
•Failure and dropout rates in introductory computer programming courses
•Engagement on extra classroom activities
•Students have a lack of motivation
•Games …
•are fun and entertain
•don’t require special training or take a course to learn to play
•Games in education
•missions are characterized as learning tasks
•feedback by missions
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Motivation(1 of2)

5. A Review of Games Designed to Improve Introductory Computer Programming Competencies
•Two approaches in universities:
•Programming small games
•Playing games
•In this paper, we …
•Identify digital games available to support introductory computer programming
•Classify them according to the learning activities they support
•We want to
•Help teachers to decide or select games
•Find new development opportunities
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Motivation(2 of2)

6. A Review of Games Designed to Improve Introductory Computer Programming Competencies
1.Motivation
2.Research questions and methodology
3.Results
4.Discussion
5.Conclusions
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Agenda

7. A Review of Games Designed to Improve Introductory Computer Programming Competencies
1.How many and which are the games available to assist introductory programming learning published in literature or on the web after 2000?
2.Which are the abilities and topics covered by these games?
3.What features are missing to better support introductory programming learning?
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Research Questions

8. A Review of Games Designed to Improve Introductory Computer Programming Competencies
•Techniques application of systematic literature review
•Searched and scanned the papers describing games used, proposed or developed to support introductory programming learning
•Searched “game” and “programming” in AppStore, Google Play, Flash Games, on the web, list of games available in GamaSutra
•Read the paper or web page, and played the game when was available
•Classified the games according to their kind, activities, tasks and subjects covered
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Research Methodology (1 of 2)

9. A Review of Games Designed to Improve Introductory Computer Programming Competencies
•Which kind of solution did we notconsider in this work ?
•Puzzles that improve reasoning, but not related to introductory programming knowledge
•Environments to develop animation or games, as Scratch and Alice
•Games that require teachers to manually evaluate solutions or answers
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Research Methodology(2 of 2)

10. A Review of Games Designed to Improve Introductory Computer Programming Competencies
1.Motivation
2.Research questions and methodology
3.Results
4.Discussion
5.Conclusions
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Agenda

11. A Review of Games Designed to Improve Introductory Computer Programming Competencies
•LOGO-Like
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Types of Games (1 of 3)
Program your robot
code.org

12. A Review of Games Designed to Improve Introductory Computer Programming Competencies
•Adventure Games
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Types of Games (2 of 3)
Code Combat
Code Spells

13. A Review of Games Designed to Improve Introductory Computer Programming Competencies
•General Puzzles
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Types of Games (3 of 3)
Entrandopelocano(Entering the pipe)
Machinist-Fabrique

14. A Review of Games Designed to Improve Introductory Computer Programming Competencies
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List of games

15. A Review of Games Designed to Improve Introductory Computer Programming Competencies
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Results (1 of 6)
19 Games
8 Games
13 Games
Classification by type

16. A Review of Games Designed to Improve Introductory Computer Programming Competencies
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Results (2 of 6)
Classification by competency
Comprehension:
Match, fill-blank, choice one instruction to complete code.
Writing:
Code or drag&dropblocks to write a program.
Debugging:
Track and assess changes in variable values, fix lines to make the program work, change parameters of conditional or repetition structures.
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
Comprehension
Writing
Debugging
LOGO-Like
Adventure
General

17. A Review of Games Designed to Improve Introductory Computer Programming Competencies
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Results (3 of 6)
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
20
Strings
Expressions
Simple I/O
Arrays
Variables
Recursion
Conditional and iteractive
Classification by subject

18. A Review of Games Designed to Improve Introductory Computer Programming Competencies
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Results (4 of 6)
Classification by platform
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
Win
Web
iOS
Android
Linux
Java
?

19. A Review of Games Designed to Improve Introductory Computer Programming Competencies
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Results (5 of 6)
Classification by programming language
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
Visualblocks
Textualblocks
Java
Proprietary
C++
C
C#
JavaScript
Ruby
Ocaml
Ada
Compalgo
Configuredby teacher

20. A Review of Games Designed to Improve Introductory Computer Programming Competencies
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Results (6 of 6)
Classification by availability
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
20
LOGO-Like
Adventure
General
Papers
Web
Both

21. A Review of Games Designed to Improve Introductory Computer Programming Competencies
1.Motivation
2.Research questions and methodology
3.Results
4.Discussion
5.Conclusions
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Agenda

22. A Review of Games Designed to Improve Introductory Computer Programming Competencies
•Availability: First practical consideration of the teacher
•Teachers prefer to select a game that supports the same programming language adopted in the course
•One uses an external tool responsible to compile and execute the program
•One allows selection among 6 programming languages
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Discussion (1 of 2)

23. A Review of Games Designed to Improve Introductory Computer Programming Competencies
•Resources according the competencies:
•Comprehension competency can be applied as learning reinforcement or concepts visualization
•Debugging have essentially bug fix and change parameters tasks
•Writing games are focused on problems solving tasks from scratch
•The competency of debugging is also naturally practiced because the games expose the state of the variables through animation of character’s action
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Discussion (2 of 2)

24. A Review of Games Designed to Improve Introductory Computer Programming Competencies
1.Motivation
2.Research questions and methodology
3.Results
4.Discussion
5.Conclusions
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Agenda

25. A Review of Games Designed to Improve Introductory Computer Programming Competencies
1.How many and which are the games available to assist introductory programming learning published in literature or on the web after 2000?
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Conclusions (1 of 3)
0
5
10
15
20
LOGO-Like
Adventure
General
Papers
Web
Both
0
10
20
30
40
Comprehension
Writing
Debugging
LOGO-Like
Adventure
General

26. A Review of Games Designed to Improve Introductory Computer Programming Competencies
2. Which are the abilities and topics covered by these games?
•Classification by competency (comprehension, writing and debugging)
•Classification by the topics covered (conditional and iterative, recursion, …)
•In general terms, LOGO-like type is more adequate to algorithmic reasoning development (writing competency) because they promotes intensive problem solving practice
•All the adventure games in writing competency classification use code to write programs
•All debugging competency are adventure games
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Conclusions (2 of 3)

27. A Review of Games Designed to Improve Introductory Computer Programming Competencies
3. What features are missing to better support introductory programming learning? (Ideas to develop a game)
•Only two games allowing more than one programming language
•No games adapts how the program is written from blocks to code, in other words, from novice to expert students
•No games support learning during the gameplay experience. They only give feedback after the mission ends
•Half of the games aren’t available to use
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Conclusions (3 of 3)

28. A Review of Games Designed to Improve Introductory Computer Programming Competencies
Adilson Vahldick
adilson.vahldick@udesc.br
24/10/2014 28
Thank You !!!
Questions ?