There is a growing interest in the application of digital games to enhance learning\nacross many educational levels. This paper investigates pre-service teachers�\nability to operationalize the learning principles that are considered part of a good\ndigital game (Gee, 2007) by designing digital games in Scratch. Forty pre-service\nteachers, enrolled in an optional educational technology course, designed and\nconstructed their own digital games in an authentic learning context. The course\nwas structured to prepare pre-service teachers to use game design and construction\nin their future pedagogical practice. These pre-service teachers had various levels\nof game-playing experience, but little-to-no previous game-design/building\nexperience. To evaluate the digital games, we created the Game Design Assessment\nSurvey, which determined the degree to which a core set of learning principles,\nidentified from the literature, were present in the digital games constructed by the\npre-service teachers. Results suggested that pre-service teachers were generally\nunaware of the learning principles that should be included in the design of a good\ndigital game, but were familiar with quality principles of interface usability. In\naddition, no relationship was found between the amount of time pre-service\nteachers played digital games and their ability to design and construct a good\ngame.
Loading....