Online Educational Games-Based Learning in Disaster Management ...

2016 IEEE 8th International Conference on Technology for Education

Online Educational Games-Based Learning in Disaster Management Education: Influence on Educational Effectiveness and Student Motivation B. THANGAGIRI

R. NAGANATHAN

Department of Chemistry Mepco Schlenk Engineering College (Autonomous) Sivakasi – 626123, Tamil Nadu, India [email protected]

Department of English Mepco Schlenk Engineering College (Autonomous) Sivakasi – 626123, Tamil Nadu, India [email protected]

even more effective [3]. There is educational potential of electronic games. This can vary from games-to-teach to games-to-learn. [4, 5, 6]. Specially, games establish potentially influential learning environments for a number of reasons [7]. (a) They can care multi-sensory, active, experimental, problem-centred learning, (b) They favour activation of former knowledge given that players must use previously learned data in order to advance, (c) They provide immediate response enabling players to test hypotheses and learn from their activities, (d) They encompass opportunities for self-assessment through the mechanisms of notching and reaching different levels, and becoming social environmental community players.

Abstract— The aim of this study was to measure the learning effectiveness and motivational appeal of an online games for learning Disaster Management Education (DME) concepts, which was designed according to the curricular objectives and the subject matter of the Mepco Schlenk Engineering College (MSEC) curriculum, as compared to a similar application, encompassing equal learning objectives and content but lacking the gaming aspect. The study also investigated prospective gender differences in the game’s learning efficacy and motivational appeal. The sample was 124 students, who were arbitrarily apportioned to two groups, one of which used the online gaming application (Group A, N = 62) and the other one the non-user of online gaming one (Group B, N = 62). A Disaster Management Knowledge Test (DMKT) was used as the pre-test and post-test. Students were also perceived during the interventions. Data analyses disclosed that the gaming approach was both more active in stimulating students’ knowledge of DME concepts and more motivational than the non-online gaming approach. Despite girls’ greater involvement with, liking of and experience in disaster online gaming, and their greater initial disaster management knowledge, the learning gains that boys and girls achieved through the usage of the game did not differ significantly, and the game was found to be more motivational for girls than the boys. The results suggest that within MSEC, online educational disaster management games can be exploited as effective and motivational learning environments, irrespective of students’ gender. Keywords— online educational games; disaster management education; game based learning

Apart from knowledge attainment, online game playing can also favour the development of various skills, such as critical thinking and problem-solving skills [8]. For all those reasons, the assertion that game design methods and techniques should inform the design of online educational software to be sued in schools is increasingly gaining acceptance with in the educational technology research community [9]. The concept of using virtual environments to situate scenario based exercise for emergency services is not completely novel. There are already some virtual environments to provide 3D rendered views of a natural calamity with information transferred via interactive on-screen menus and heads-up displays. a) Games based learning What makes games so appealing and interactive is an often asked question. The answer to this is simply the in-built learning design. Games based Learning in eLearning encourages self-reliance and self-determination in terms of a learner’s ability to create progress within a challenging but incrementally performed environment. Whether be it a lecture hall, a dining hall, a meeting room or a training area, games has outshined in the messaging that needs to be delivered. Practically, it can be seen that the level of rendezvous and collaborations increases with the involvement of games in the teaching module.

I. INTRODUCTION As tsunamis and earthquakes in the current scenario have alarmingly revealed, natural disasters as well as other emergency situations such as fires are ubiquitous dangers in our daily life. The development training of emergency management personnel is therefore a chief issue in reducing damage by these terrifying calamities. Given that disasters can vary in space from e.g. local fires on a chemical park to large earthquakes such as the one in Haiti in January 2010, a wide training strategy combining domain specific awareness and social skills such as communication and decision making in groups is required. The value of disaster exercises and simulations and their various benefits have been widely discussed in literature [1]. Games comprehends educational intentions and subject matter that are believed to hold the potential in rendering the learning of academic topics more learner-oriented, easier, more enjoyable, more interesting, and 978-1-5090-6115-0/16 $31.00 © 2016 IEEE DOI 10.1109/T4E.2016.24

b) Games as Pedagogical Devices As instructive devices, games are enormously useful - they can enliven teaching topics and are especially effective for dealing with problem solving and key concepts [10]. Research

88

within Group B the respective dissimilarity would not be substantial. 4. Within Group A, boys would exhibit pointedly more positive opinions on the application used than girls, whereas within Group B the respective dissimilarity would not be noteworthy. B. Participants The research was conducted in two first year engineering under graduate students of Mechanical Engineering and Civil Engineering branch of strength 62 each in group. Hence, The sample were 124 students, 85 boys and 39 girls, aged 16–18 years old .The students were attending the second semester Disaster Management Education course according to the MSEC curriculum. They also possessed basic computer skills like web browsing skills, which form part of Computer Programming course of the same curriculum. Students had not previously familiar or used any online-game based educational software at college before. Among the Mechanical engineering and Civil Engineering branch, the former only were given online game-based DME. Table I shows the scattering of the participants according to gender and intervention group.

shows that games have a special role in building students’ selfconfidence and they can diminish the gap between quicker and last bench-slower learners [11]. c) Need of Online game based learning Using games in class can be beneficial when teaching kids to apply learned skills and concepts to real-world scenarios. Virtual simulations games allow students to implement problem solving and critical thinking skills. The following sites and games have been listed according to specific courses, but can be applied to a variety of classroom setting and used in a variety of lessons. II. METHODS A. Research design The study compared three online game based educational applications on DME concepts. The three applications were identical in terms of entrenched learning objectives and learning material, and contrasted only in that one followed a gaming attitude, whereas the other did not. Any modifications in learning outcomes and appeal to students between the two applications could, thus, be recognised to the gaming factor. The students that participated in the study were assigned to two groups, one of which used the online educational gaming application (Group A) and the other one used the non-gaming approach (Group B). The study followed a pre-test, post-test experimental scheme, taking before and after measures of each group, in order to explore the special effects of type of application used (gaming, non-gaming) on students’ success as measured by a knowledge test on DME concepts. Additionally, after the completion of the interventions, students’ opinions on various aspects of the application that they had used were provoked through a feedback questionnaire, and the effects of type of application on those opinions were explored. Students’ gender obliged as a moderating variable. To reach these ambitions, we seek to answer four research questions:

TABLEI. Distribution of participants according to gender and intervention group Boys Girls Total

Group A 60 02 62

Group B 25 37 62

Total 85 39 124

C. Materials Two similar group constructed by the researcher were used in the study: (a) online game-based DME and (b) non-online game based group with traditional teaching methods. In the design of both, it was intended that the user interface be simple and instinctive and that steering be as easy as possible so that students easily find their way around, without the need of any particular written directions or technical skills. D. Online Educational Gaming application The following major Three online games based on disaster management are given to the students to play and learn the DME concepts. 1. Stop disaster [12]: It is a disaster simulation game from the United Nations’ International Strategy for Risk Reduction. It is a single player game beleaguered at kids level (although anyone can play) to learn about natural catastrophes. There are five scenarios with three levels of difficulty. The player needs to make decisions to reduce the impacts of natural hazards.

1. What is game-based learning? What are the role played by this in disaster management education? 2. What is the potential impact of game-based learning on learners’ engagement and fulfilment towards DME? 3. What are the possible ways and means by which we improve the learners learning environments with better understanding? 4. What is the nature and extent of the evidence base? The research questions enlisted above are mainly concerned with the notion of gameplay (playing games) rather than making games (how the outlook of creating original video games can be used to interest young people in complex activities like software programming). We will travel around the association between gameplay and learning from an empirical (impacts and effects) point of view. Based on the overview of the research literature, the hypotheses of the study were formulated as follows: 1. The students of Group A would exhibit significantly greater achievement in terms of DME knowledge than those of Group B. 2. The students of Group A would form significantly more positive views on the application used compared to those of Group B. 3. Within Group A, boys would exhibit significantly greater achievement in terms of DME knowledge than girls, whereas

89

1. Have you taken a course/subject/seminar/workshop/training related to disaster management? (Yes / No) 2. If YES, please provide details. 3. Is this your first time to play the given games (YES / NO) 4. List FIVE computer games that you know how to play:______ 5. Do you think that computer simulation games can be advantageous in disaster preparedness, risk reduction and management? (Yes/ No). Explain your answer. 6. What do you like best in the given game? 7. What don't you like in the given game? 8. Would you recommend the given game to your friends or relatives? (Yes / No). Explain. 9. Did the given game improve your understanding basics of disaster preparedness, risk reduction and management? (Yes / No) 10. Give suggestions/recommendations on how to improve the given game. IV. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION The cognitive learning outcome measured with pre and posttest with questionnaires was significantly and effectively higher in the group-A when compared with other group-B which based on regular classroom teaching methodology. t-Test was calculated to test if two groups differed significantly from each other. t-Test Result of Post-Test and test after one month for experimental and control group are shown first and second row of table 1.

Fig. 1 Earthquake scene from Stop Disasters 2. Disaster dynamics: Hurricane Landfall [13]: The Hurricane Landfall game teaches players about interactions between natural menaces and human conclusions in a Gulf Coast barrier island community. It is a strategy and negotiation based online educational game intended for use in undergraduate classes, and is intended for four players who are connected to one another via the Internet.

Fig.2 Hurricane scene from Disaster Dynamics: Hurricane Landfall 3. Be a hero! [14]: The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in association with the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) Youth Preparedness Program offers a collaborative website for kids to learn more about disasters. These games support kids in learning about disaster conditions and creating informed choices as well as learning what to put in preparedness kits.

TABLE 1: T-TEST RESULT OF POST-TEST AND TEST AFTER ONE MONTH FOR EXPERIMENTAL AND CONTROL GROUP

Degree of Freedom 62 62

Standard Devision 59.48 57.88

t Value

p Value

4.25 5.81

0.00016 0.0001

A major motivation for educators to conglomerate gaming with education is the high motivational capability of online educational games. Activating this prospective of gratification for education promises unforced learning, even of contents most students do not like to learn. The difficult of many online educational games however is that they easily loose gaming character due to the integration of online educational contents are to be motivational measurements. In this study, we asked students how much enjoyment when they had in their learning experience. The gaming group clearly and meaningfully communicated more fun than the script group. In addition, online game-based learning group would have liked to learn more with games than other regular group with the traditional methods. Another explanation for better enactment is that retention is better in the former group, due to a more active and interactive learning experience.

Fig.3 Screenshot from Disaster Master These games are the part of the blended learning strategy: after playing the game, the decision-making processes are discussed in the group in a detailed feedback phase. III. PROCEDURE The above online games are given to the first year undergraduate engineering students who also having the course 15BS202 - Environmental Science and Disaster Management in their one of the regular second semester corecourse. They are subjected to pre-test on games and their awareness towards various types of disasters before getting exposure of these online educational games. The survey questioners are given below:

Fig.4 Flow diagram for DME game

90

the Advancement of Games and Simulations in Education and Training, Leeds, UK, pp. 20–27, 2009. [2] T.E.. Drabek, Managing the emergency response, Public Administration Review, 85-92, 1985. [3] B. Burnam, Y.B. Kafai, Journal of Educational Computing Research, 25 (2), 111-127, 2001. [4] https://culturalpolicy.uchicago.edu/educational-potentialelectronic-games-games-teach-games-learn. last access: 17/07/2016. [5] T. Malone, What makes things fun to learn? Heuristics for designing instructional computer games. In Proceedings of the 3 rd ACM SIGSMALL Symposium and the 1st SIGPC Symposium, pp. 162–169. Palo Alto, USA, 1980. [6] M. Prensky, Digital game-based learning. New York: McGrawHill, 2001. [7] D. Oblinger, The next generation of educational engagement. Journal of Interactive Media in Education, 8, 1–18, 2004. [8] A. McFarlane, A. Sparrowhawk, and Y. Heald, Report on the educational use of games: An exploration by TEEM of the contribution which games can make to the education process. Cambridgeshire, UK, 2002. [9] J. Kirriemuir, Video gaming, education and digital learning technologies. D-Lib Magazine, 8(2), 2002. [10] A.F. Chow, C.W. KELLY, and J, MAES, Deal or No Deal: using games to improve student learning, retention and decision-making. Internatlional Journal of Mathematical Education in Science and Technology, 42, 259-264, 2011. [11] A.J. Lowenstein, M.J. Bradshaw, Fuszard's Innovative Teaching Strategies in Nursing. 3rd ed, Maryland: An aspen Publication, 168173, 2001. [12] http://www.stopdisastersgame.org/en/playgame.html. Last access on 02/06/2016. [13] http://www.dd.ucar.edu/home.html. Last access on 21/06/2016. [14] https://www.ready.gov/kids. Last access on 05/07/2016. [15] R. Garris, R. Ahlers, and J. E. Driskell, "Games, Motivation, and Learning: A Research and Practice Model" Simulation and Gaming, 33(4), 441-467, 2002.

Fig.4 shows how game characteristics and instructional content derive together to bring about learning outcomes in a game cycle [15]. Here the instructional content are given by all discussed three online educational games and MSEC curriculum having the DME in syllabus. The DME process cycle includes the main three phase user judgement, user behaviour and system behaviour which are in game cycle. The output will be the attainment of the learning outcome of the same course. V. CONCLUSION The online game-based learning is more effective than a script-based approach for the training of urinalysis in regard to cognitive learning outcome and has a great constructive motivational influence on learning method of first year undergraduate students. The online game-based learning can be used as an effective teaching method for self-instruction. The epitome of interactive, highly engaging training and education is ancient. However, the gap continues to propagate between antiquated, passive training techniques and a workforce that lives an ever more interactive, multimedia and user-controlled lifestyle. With online game-based learning tools to bridge that gap comes the promise of vastly more fruitful and involved students and workers - ones who clasp learning rather than view it as a disruptive burden. Online game based learning also caters various human thinking element such as a competition and reward. In a nutshell, gamification can be termed as the innovative commencement to the level of interactivity that eLearning and mLearning world is looking into. The potential impact of online game-based learning of DME concepts are listed below: 1. Integration of games into classroom settings has been associated with student achievement and motivation. 2. Gamification of classroom instruction provides an opportunity to make connections and transfer existing information to new situations. These connections reinforce information used during game play, making it more memorable. 3. Students don’t always recognize when they have failed to learn something. The use of games and simulations in the classroom can provide students with immediate feedback as they test their understanding of the material. 4. For every action or decision made within the framework of a game, there is a reaction. This provides prompt remediation and practice when necessary and redefines failure as an opportunity to improve. 5. As players complete tasks, master skills, or acquire points, they move to increasingly difficult levels where they apply and synthesize skills and information learned previously. ACKNOWLEDGMENT The authors thanks the Principal and Management of Mepco Schlenk Engineering College (Autonomous), Sivakasi, Tamilnadu, India for their constant support and encouragement throughout this research. REFERENCES C. Linehan, S. Lawson, M. Doughty, and B. Kirman, “There’s no ‘I’ in emergency management teams: designing and evaluating a serious game for training emergency managers in group decision making skills, Proceedings of the 39th Conference of the Society for

[1]

91