Title: Developing computer adventure education games on mobile devices for conducting cooperative problem-solving activities

Authors: Yu-Jen Hsu; Ju-Ling Shih

Addresses: Department of Information and Learning Technology, National University of Tainan, Tainan, Taiwan ' Department of Information and Learning Technology, National University of Tainan, Tainan, Taiwan

Abstract: This paper presents the design and evaluation of two digital games that were developed as virtual adventure education activities. College students were invited to participate in the research. Everyone has a mobile device that was networked to solve the multiplayer tasks. The gaming processes were recorded by the game system and human observations, questionnaires and interviews were also conducted to collect qualitative data. The results showed that students either participated in the adventure education activities in physical form, digital form, or mixed form, all reached significant differences on their improvements of group cooperation behaviours and problem-solving abilities. It was evident that the cooperative digital games supported by mobile devices can function as effectively as multiplayer physical games.

Keywords: mobile devices; digital games; adventure education; group cooperation; computer games; educational games; cooperative problem solving; multiplayer games.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMLO.2013.055616

International Journal of Mobile Learning and Organisation, 2013 Vol.7 No.2, pp.81 - 98

Published online: 20 Sep 2014 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article