A presentation I delivered to CEER group at Glasgow Caledonian in March 2013

1. Games-based Construction
learning in Upper Primary
Education
Amanda Wilson
amanda.wilson@uws.ac.uk

2. Presentation structure
• About me
• Introduction
• Programming for Children
• Games-based construction
• Scratch
• Methods
• Results
• Discussion
• Further Work

3. About me
• 3rd
year PhD student
• Have been researching Primary Computing since
honours year
• Have also taught Scratch to 2nd
year pupils

4. Introduction
• Children more accustomed to using technology
at a younger age.
• More utilisation of computer games in schools.
• Introduction of GBL into curriculum. New
Curriculum in Scottish Schools
• Lack of Empirical evidence of GBL in schools

5. Programming for children
• Programming can be taught from an early age.
• Variety of languages aimed at the novice user
such as: Alice, Toontalk, Starlogo, Etoys, Scratch
and Kodu.
• Initiatives such as after school clubs also run to
introduce children to programming.

6. Games-based Construction
• Game construction is one of 3 ways to introduce
games-based learning (Van Eck, 2006).
• Commercial off the Shelf games (COTS)
• Using games specifically created for education
• Use of game construction as an approach to GBL
• Game construction is relatively unexplored within
the classroom (Baytak and Land 2010).
• Game construction becoming more accessible to
young children.

7. Scratch
• Scratch – Drag and drop programming
environment for children as young as 7.
• Has been used as an introduction to computing
in Harvard university.
• Little empirical evidence of use of Scratch in
Primary Education setting.

8. Scratch
• A simple game creation platform using a visual
programming language.
•Developed originally for use in after school computer
clubhouses

9. Scratch

10. Curriculum for Excellence
• Reform of Scottish Education – implemented in
schools in 2010 intends to give a coherent
curriculum from 3-18 years old.
• Gives children the knowledge and skills for
learning, life and work.
• Aims to develop four capacities for the children
to become:
 Successful learners
 Confident individuals
 Responsible citizens
 Effective contributors

11. Curriculum for Excellence
• Intended to give children the “knowing how”
rather than the “knowing what” to build the four
capacities.
• Done through experiences and outcomes.
• Teachers encouraged to make more use of
different approaches to learning.
• ICT is one of these approaches and the use of the
schools intranet system Glow or GBL are
suggested ways of supporting learning.

12. Teacher views on GBL in the class
• Consolarium’s Impact of Games in the
Classroom project – focused on how console
games were being utilised in schools.
▫ Teachers commented on children being more
motivated and engaged.
▫ Teachers warned games should not be overused
and they do not need to be linked with every
aspect of the curriculum.

13. Teachers views on GBL in the class
• The Games in Schools Project looked at a
selection of schools across Europe (including the
Consolarium’s project).
▫ Teachers found costs, lack of suitable games and
timetabling issues as factors for not introducing
GBL.
• Futurelabs conducted studies in 2006 and again
in 2009 with teachers in England.
▫ Teachers found hardware/software costs and
licensing issues as the main reasons for not
introducing GBL.

14. Methods
• Objectives of research:
▫ Look at what approaches to GBL teachers are
using and compare with the literature available.
▫ Introduce teachers to game making as an
alternative to game playing.
▫ Evaluate pupils’ and teachers experiences of
making games with Scratch.

15. Results of Teacher Survey
• Survey conducted on primary teachers within
Glasgow City Council Area.
• 42 teachers responded from 31 different schools.
• 83% of teachers had used games in the class
▫ 83% web based games – Noah’s Ark, BBC Bitesize
▫ 12% CD-ROMS – Fairytale sequencing, Zoombinis
(the logical journey)
▫ 5% console games – Wii Fit, Just Dance

16. Results of Teacher Survey

17. Results of Teacher Survey
• Of the 33 teachers who answered the question of
whether they had used a game creation tool in
the classroom only 5 had.

18. Results of Teacher Survey
• Of the 30 teachers who answered the question of
whether they had created their own game to use
in class only 5 had .

19. Results of teacher survey
• GBL within the four capacities.
• Teachers felt that GBL would be beneficial
overall to developing the four capacities:
▫ 84% agreed it would build Effective learners
▫ 75% agreed it would build Responsible citizens
▫ 100% agree it would build Successful learners
▫ 82% agreed it would build Confident Individuals

20. Results of teacher survey
• The teachers feel that the highest ranking factors
of the benefits of using GBL in the class are that
it transforms learning into an engaging, fun and
motivating experience .
• While they felt finding a suitable game making
tool was the highest ranking obstacle to using
GBL in the class for teachers, with lack of PC’s
and technology second.

21. Results of teacher survey
• Overall the results indicate that while computer
games are being made use of within the
curriculum by primary teachers in Glasgow they
are mainly web based and very few console
based games are being used by the teachers.
• They also show that teachers are not making use
of approaches like game making in the class.

22. Pilot study
• 60 children aged between 8 and 11 from 3 classes
(Primary 4, 5/6 and 6/7) in one school participated
• They undertook lessons in pairs (or groups of 3)
• 8 one hour lessons were delivered
▫ Lesson 1 – Introduction to Scratch
▫ Lessons 2-4 – Creating a simple maze game
▫ Lessons 5-8 – Extending maze game/Creating new
game

23. Game coding scheme
• A game coding scheme was adapted from Denner,
Werner and Ortiz (2011) and refined based on the
programming concepts that can be learned with Scratch
• The coding was split into 3 main categories and 22
subcategories
▫ Programming Concepts
▫ Code organisation
▫ Designing for Usability
• Each game was coded for the presence of each element
(either 0/1) or in some cases the extent to which that
element was used within the categories using a range
from either 0-2 or 0-3.

24. Game Coding
• Programming Concepts category focused on the concepts
that Scratch supports that include:
▫ Sequence
▫ Iteration
▫ Variables
▫ Conditional Statements
▫ Lists
▫ Event handling
▫ Threads
▫ Coordination and Synchronisation
▫ Keyboard Input
▫ Random Numbers
▫ Boolean Logic
▫ Dynamic Interaction
▫ User Interface Design

25. Game Coding
• Code organisation category:
▫ Extraneous blocks
▫ Sprite names (the default is overridden).
▫ Variable names
• Designing for usability category:
▫ Functionality
▫ Goal
▫ Sprite customisation
▫ Stage customisation
▫ Instructions clear
▫ Game originality

26. Results
• During the study 29 games were created by the
groups of children
• The mean game score was 48% and a Kruskal-Wallis
one way analysis of variance test showed no
significant difference in game scores between class
groups (χ2
= 0.072, p < 0.965) or between gender
2
Class Stick with
maze game
Adapt maze
game (change
background
adapt game)
Adapt maze game
(change
background
adapt game to
two player)
Create new game
(come up with
another idea other
than maze game)
P4 0 3 4 2
P5/6 3 1 0 6
P6/7 2 2 0 6

27. Results
• The games varied in their complexity with over 90%
of them using the keyboard or mouse to control the
game with others either not having been completed
or having the user answer questions instead.
• Kruskal-Wallis tests showed no significant
difference in concepts used between class groups (χ2
= 0.176, p < 0.916) or between gender groupings (χ2
= 0.472, p < 0.790). However, Mann-Whitney U test
showed a significant difference between the
concepts used in maze-based games compared to
the original games made by all classes (Z=-2.535, p
< 0.010).

28. Results
Programming Concepts
% of games including programming
concepts
Sequence 93
Event Handling 90
Conditional Statements 86
Threads 83
Variables 72
Coordination and Synchronisation 72
Iteration 55
Keyboard Input 7
Random Numbers 3

29. Results
• 21% of the games included extraneous blocks.
• 72% of the games included meaningful variable
names most games only included a timer,
however some games also implemented a
scoring system as well.
• Only 3% of games had changed the default sprite
name.

30. Results
• Out of the 29 games only 1 had no functionality.
The others had varying degrees with 28% of the
games being fully functional.
Designing for Usability % of games
Functionality 97
Sprite customisation 97
Stage customisation 93
Clear Instructions 86
Game originality 83
Goal 59

31. Game Example 1
Adapted maze game from Primary 5/6 class

32. Game Example 1
• The sprite in the game is controlled by the arrow
keys. Conditions are set that if the sprite touches
the green walls it will bounce off them while the
timer counts down how many seconds left the
user has.

33. Game Example 2
2 Player adapted maze game from the Primary 4 class

34. Game Example 2
• The sprites in the game are controlled by the
arrow keys for player 1 and player 2 used the
w,a,s,d keys.
• There were 2 variables within the game and
while the timer worked the scoring wasn’t
working correctly.

35. Discussion
• Few studies have been undertaken to look at
learning programming concepts through game
construction for children.
• These studies have shown that children are able
to learn programming concepts through game
construction although these have been
conducted mainly after school and little is
known within the classroom setting.

36. Discussion
• The 8 lessons were a basic introduction to game
making with Scratch.
• Most children were successful in creating their
own game.
• With those in the Primary 4 class preferring to
adapt the maze game rather than create their
own.
• 60% of each Primary 5/6 and 6/7 class opted to
create their own game.

37. Discussion
• The concepts most commonly used by the children in their
games were similar to those found in Maloney et al (2008)
▫ Key handling
▫ Iteration
▫ Conditional statements
• Gender groupings did not have a significant effect on the
games created, however the Primary 5/6 class which consisted
of mixed gender groups did have the highest mean score as
well as the most functional games of all 3 classes.
• Similar to the results of Baytak and Land (2011) this study
shows that given a short timeframe children were able to
make progress with Scratch show advances in their
programming skills.

38. Future Work
• Work with more classes (from Primary 4 to
Primary 7) in other schools within Glasgow to
attain further empirical results to produce more
statistically significant evidence.
• Refinement of the instrument of evaluation
through a series of pilot studies.

39. Thank you