Computers & Education 56 (2011) 80–90
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Computers & Education
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/compedu
The influence of the level of free-choice learning activities on the use
of an educational computer game
Wolmet Barendregt a, *, Tilde M. Bekker b
a
b
Department of Applied IT, IT University, University of Gothenburg, Forskningsgången 6, 41296 Gothenburg, Sweden
Department of Industrial Design, Eindhoven University of Technology, Den Dolech 2, 5612 AZ Eindhoven, The Netherlands
a r t i c l e i n f o
a b s t r a c t
Article history:
Received 25 January 2010
Received in revised form
22 July 2010
Accepted 20 August 2010
Employing a mixed-method explorative approach, this study examined the in situ use of and opinions
about an educational computer game for learning English introduced in three schools offering different
levels of freedom to choose school activities. The results indicated that the general behaviour of the
children with the game was very different for each of the schools while there were no significant
differences in subjective opinions or previous computer game experience as measured with a questionnaire. The gaming records and interviews informed that children do enjoy playing the game in
comparison with other formal learning activities, but appreciate it less as a leisure-time activity.
Furthermore it appears that children used to teacher-initiated activities tend to depend on their teacher’s
directions for how and when to play. The study highlights the level of choice as one of the important
aspects to consider when introducing a game in the classroom. The study also points out some
suggestions for the design of educational games, such as providing communication possibilities between
players and integrating fast-paced motor-skill based games with learning content in a meaningful way.
Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords:
Elementary education
Motivation
Interactive learning environments
Teaching/learning strategies
1. Introduction
There are several reasons for introducing educational computer games in the classroom: computer games can motivate children for
learning through their motivational power, and they offer a powerful learning tool by providing interactivity and the possibility to ‘learn by
doing’ (Kirriemuir & McFarlane, 2003). Furthermore, Mumtaz (2001) has argued there is an increasing gap in the way children perceive and
use computers in the home and the school environment and that ‘schools should learn from what works at home and enable children to
work on activities they find valuable, motivational and worthwhile’. High quality educational games could bridge the gap between home
and school perceptions about computers (Virvou, Katsionis, & Manos, 2004) and form one of the new tools that can help to connect
education closer to student’s daily lives (Partnership for 21st Century Skills, 2003). Just like casual visits to ‘free-choice learning environments’ such as museums and zoos can help to bridge the gap between formal and informal science learning (Hofstein & Rosenfeld, 1996),
educational computer games could fulfil this role for a whole range of topics, such as mathematics and second language learning.
An example of an educational game that has the potential to bridge the gap between the home and the school environment is Hello You.
This educational computer game has been developed as a leisure-time game and has won the CineKid New Media Award 2007 based on
a jury of both children and experts. The children in this jury commented as follows: “Why is teaching not done more often in this way?”
(Games2learn, 2007). However, in a pilot study, children who were asked to play this game at home were not as enthusiastic; it was
especially hard to motivate them to play more than once. We reasoned that there may be several factors that explain this discrepancy. In the
subsequent paragraphs we will discuss these factors based on the literature.
1.1. Choice in formal and informal learning settings
The first factor is the difference between the home and the school environment, or the formal versus the informal learning setting. We
first look at the definitions of formal and informal learning.
* Corresponding author. Tel.: þ46 31 786 6812; fax: þ46 31 772 4899.
E-mail addresses: [email protected] (W. Barendregt), [email protected] (T.M. Bekker).
0360-1315/$ – see front matter Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2010.08.018
W. Barendregt, T.M. Bekker / Computers & Education 56 (2011) 80–90
81
la Belle (1982) quotes Coombs and Ahmed when defining formal learning as the ‘institutionalized, chronologically graded and hierarchically structured educational system, spanning lower primary school and the upper reaches of the university.’ Hofstein and Rosenfeld
(1996, p. 90) adopt a hybrid definition of informal learning as proposed by Crane, Nicholson and Chen:
Informal learning refers to activities that occur outside the school setting, are not developed primarily for school use, are not developed
to be part of an ongoing school curriculum, and are characterized by voluntary as opposed to mandatory participation as part of
a credited school experience. Informal learning experiences may be structured to meet a stated set of objectives and may influence
attitudes, convey information, and/or change behaviour.
Examining these two definitions we see that children in the pilot study were asked to play the game in an informal setting, while the
children in the CineKid jury played the game in a formal setting. However, an important characteristic of informal learning is the aspect of
voluntary participation as opposed to mandatory participation. This is the second explaining factor: children in the pilot study might have
felt that playing the game was mandatory and less appealing than other activities at home, thereby creating a conflict with the informal
setting which is normally more associated with voluntary game playing.
Finally, even within formal settings there may be differences in how much choice children are offered. Falk, Heimlich, and Foutz describe
free-choice learning as follows: “[Free-choice learning is] the term we use to describe the learning that occurs in . education settings when
the learning is largely under the choice and control of the learner .” (Falk, Heimlich, & Foutz, 2009, p. 5).
Choice within the formal setting has been a topic of motivational research. Katz and Assor (2007) used a self-determination theory (SDT)
(Ryan & Deci, 2000) lens to determine under what conditions choice in the classroom motivates and when it does not. Their conclusion was that:
In order for choice to be motivating, it has to be based on a careful match between the various options and the students’ needs, interests,
goals, abilities, and cultural background. In addition, considerable attention should be paid to the context and manner in which the
choice is provided.
The children in the Cinekid jury played the game at school, but not as a normal obligatory school activity; it was a rather extraordinary
learning activity that probably related to their interests and in which they got more freedom to choose than usual. This could help to explain
their enthusiasm about the game as a learning activity, especially in contrast with the children in the pilot study. Related to this is the notion
about education of Locke as given by Lepper and Cordova (1992, p. 188):
What we learn, [Locke] argued, will depend on whether we see a particular opportunity for learning as a task and a business or as a thing
of delight and recreation- whether we view that activity as “work” or as “play.”
In a way, the children in the pilot study might have experienced the activity as ‘play’ being turned into ‘work’, whereas the children in the
jury might have perceived this activity as ‘play’. Altogether we felt there was a need to explore in more detail how the perception and actual
use of an educational game is related to the formal and informal setting, i.e. at school and at home respectively, and the level of choice for
doing this activity. We therefore set up an explorative study with this game to get some first insights.
1.2. Research aims
After our experience with the game in a pilot study we reasoned that both formal and informal learning settings and the
possibility for free-choice learning activities could influence children’s use of and opinion about an educational computer game. We
adopted the model of learning described by Garris, Ahlers, and Driskell (2002, p. 445), which is inherent in many studies of
instructional games:
First, the objective is to design an instructional program that incorporates certain features or characteristics of games. Second, these
features trigger a cycle that includes user judgments or reactions such as enjoyment or interest, user behaviours such as greater
persistence or time on task, and further system feedback. To the extent that we are successful in pairing instructional content with
appropriate game features, this cycle results in recurring and self-motivated game play. Finally, this engagement in game play leads to the
achievement of training objectives and specific learning outcomes.
Employing a mixed-method explorative approach, this study examined how the level of choice in the formal learning environment
influences children’s behaviour with and opinion of an educational game. We thus focused mainly on the first two phases of this model,
leaving the study of the achievement of training objectives and specific learning outcomes to a later stage.
We approached three schools offering different levels of free-choice learning activities. On the first school, children are completely free to
define their school activities. On the second school, children are free to choose between a number of learning activities, and on the last
school all learning activities are largely under the control of the teacher. We were interested in the similarities and differences between the
schools in relation to how the game was played in both the formal and informal setting.
Concerning the behaviour of the children we had the following questions that we wanted to explore and compare between the
schools:
B
B
B
How many children are interested to play the game in the formal learning setting (at school), and how much and how do they play in this
setting?
How many children are interested to play the game in the informal learning setting (at home), and how much and how do they play in
this setting?
Is the interest in the game sustained after the testing period?
Concerning the opinions of the children we had the following questions:
B
What were children’s expectations of the game, and did the game fulfil the expectations?
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B
What is the children’s evaluation of the game as a learning activity and as a game?
Finally, as a control question we were interested in children’s previous experience with playing computer games.
2. Material and method
When researching the impact of ICT on education researchers should consider the whole educational context and not just focus on the
controlled manipulation of a single variable (Salomon, 1990). Similarly, Barab, Thomas, Dodge, Carteaux, and Tuzun (2005) argue that it is
essential for the evolvement of rich theory to do research in a naturalistic environment. Finally, Lucas, McManus and Thomas (1986, p. 90)
state about the research of learning in informal settings:
The major difference between classical studies of learning and studies of learning from informal settings is that the context of informal
learning must be preserved if the results are to have validity. Classrooms are places where interactions between teachers and pupils are
expected, and the replacement of the teacher by the researcher will have much less effect on the validity of the conclusions than the
introduction of a researcher into the interaction between museum visitor and exhibit.
Since we were interested in the use of this game in both the formal and informal environment we decided not to interfere in any of the
settings.
According to Savenye and Robinson (2004) research of instructional technology should employ mixed-methods. Therefore we
adopted a mix of quantitative (Likert scale questions concerning normal play, expectations about the game, rating of the game’s fun
and educational value) and qualitative (open-ended questions, digital records, reports from the children, interviews with children and
teachers) methods.
2.1. Procedure
We asked three schools in The Netherlands to participate in this study. To ensure the anonymity of the schools we will call them school A
(only free-choice learning activities), B (free-choice learning activities within boundaries), and C (no-choice learning activities) in the
remainder of this article. These schools were asked to introduce the game to their pupils as a learning activity similar to other learning
activities. However, all teachers were asked to explain to the children that the game also could be played at home if they wished. This was
once more underlined in the letter asking the parents for their informed consent.
Since it was extremely important that children in the schools offering free-choice learning activities really perceived playing the game as
such we had no control over the number of children participating at those schools.
Each school received the number of accounts that the teacher had asked for based on the children’s interest to play the game. The
first school (A) got access to the game in January 2009, the second school (B) in March 2009, and the third (C) in May 2009. The
participating children’s use of the game was recorded unobtrusively during a four-week period immediately after they received
access. After four weeks all children received a questionnaire about their playing experiences. In this questionnaire the children were
told that they could continue playing the game if they wanted to. All participating children were then followed occasionally during
the subsequent months.
2.2. Research contexts and participants
School A is an Iederwijs school (http://www.iederwijs.nl). This particular Iederwijs school is rather small and had only 40 children in
school year 2008/2009. The school offers only free-choice learning activities. At this school the teacher asked 14 children between 9 and 12
years old whether they wanted to play the game Hello You. Those children that were interested in playing the game received an account for
the game. The children could then decide for themselves whether they actually were going to play the game and in what way; they did not
receive any explicit instructions.
School B is a unique school in The Netherlands that started in 2004. The pedagogy of this school is very similar to the Vittra schools
(http://www.vittra.se) in Sweden. The school had 132 children in the school year 2008/2009. The school offers free-choice activities
in the sense that children can choose from a range of activities and have to argue for their choice. At school B all 50 children of unit 3
(between 9 and 12 years old) were asked if they were interested to play Hello You, and if so they would receive as account. The
children could then schedule playing the game as an activity in their week plan. They did not receive any instructions on how to play
the game.
School C is a more ‘traditional’ school, in which children are placed in year groups and receive classical instruction. This school had 326
children in the school year 2008/2009. The school generally does not offer any free-choice learning activities. The 11 children of one
combined 7th and 8th grade class (10–12 years old) at school C were instructed to play the game at school during three computer lessons.
The first two half-hour lessons they were asked to find words for the dictionary but they could also play the mini games that they
encountered during this search for words. During the last lesson children could explore the game freely.
We consider all schools to be formal learning environments by definition, but the level of free-choice activities differs. The three schools
can be placed in a free-choice/no-choice continuum as shown in Fig. 1. School C is placed to the right of the continuum but not at the edge
since children do get some freedom in how to perform given tasks.
Fig. 1. Placement of the three schools on a free-choice/no-choice learning activities continuum.
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2.3. The game
The game Hello You was originally launched as an addition to Hello You magazine by Malmberg educational publishers. The purpose of
this magazine was to help children in group 7 and 8 of primary school to learn English by means of comic book strips, tests and puzzles. The
magazine was available through schools, but aimed at out-of-school use. Currently the magazine no longer exists but children can still get
access to the game by buying it separately, or by subscribing to one of Malmberg’s other magazines. Some of the mini games can also be
played for free at http://www.helloyou.nl.
Although Malmberg has a strong rooting in educational methods it was decided that the game would not adhere to the classical
learning concept for teaching English. Instead, the game would try to connect more closely to what children themselves like, thereby
explicitly trying to bridge the gap between the school and the home context. Malmberg performed interviews with 100 children in 5
different schools to find out which topics children find interesting and what the graphical design should look like. One of the
findings was that children think it is cool to be able to say something in English but that they usually do not like to say things like
‘Hello, I am .’ as is common in classical language learning methods. Instead they like to know words for different objects and be able
to show that to other children. The Hello You game was thus meant to increase children’s vocabulary, instead of teaching them
grammar in a classical way. For Malmberg this was a clear shift in focus; away from schools or teachers and towards the children
themselves.
Although the children in the CineKid jury expressed their wish that formal teaching should more often be done in the same way as in the
Hello You game, the publisher of the game, Malmberg, actually positioned it as an informal learning activity which makes it a very
interesting game for this study. Furthermore, since the game is an Internet-based game it provides excellent possibilities to be played both at
school and at home.
The game offers a wide range of activities, some of them more educational than others. The game is intended for children between 10 and
12 years old. It consists of a game world with several quests and 21 mini games. The quests are given as tasks like ‘Try to find the musical
instruments of James Blunt’ in which there can be subtasks like ‘Find the guitar’, but there also quests like ‘Find 50 hidden words’. The player
then has to walk around in the game world and gather information to fulfil the quests by finding objects, people, or words hidden in
conversations with non-player characters. Information from the non-player characters is obtained by clicking them and choosing from
a small number of options how to respond to their questions (Fig. 2). Whenever a conversation contains a hidden word it is added to the
dictionary. There is a total of 91 words hidden in the conversations.
The quests can be played in arbitrary order and one can play several quests at the same time. While talking to the non-player characters
the children are offered to play mini games. Once a mini game has been found it can be accessed from the opening screen. The mini games
differ in educational potential. They range from very educational, like spelling a spoken English word, to hardly educational, like
manoeuvring a hero to rescue people in a building while avoiding falling boxes and enemies (Fig. 3). By playing the mini games players can
win objects that they need to fulfil the quests.
Fig. 2. Screenshot from the game world in Hello You in which the player has to fulfil the quests and find words by talking to non-player characters.
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Fig. 3. Stuntman game in which the player has to rescue the people shouting for help while avoiding enemies and boxes thrown out of the windows.
2.4. Data collection and analysis
From participants’ game playing records, questionnaires, and interviews we collected a variety of data:
Game playing records: One of the major data gathering methods was taking notes of all changes in the player results such as whether the
child had played, any new games found, new highscores obtained, and the number of words found. This was done twice a day, before and
after school for a period of four weeks after introduction of the game at school. After the first four weeks we performed less regular
checks for a further six months to see whether children had continued playing after filling out the questionnaire.
Questionnaire: Previous computer game experience and subjective ratings of the game were obtained through a questionnaire that
children received after the four-week testing period. The questionnaire also contained questions about the level of English and openended questions about what the children would like to improve and which mini games they did and did not like, and why. The questionnaire is given in Appendix 1.
Interviews: We performed semi-structured telephone interviews with five children representing different types of behaviour with the
game. Since younger children tend to give socially desirable answers when a researcher asks them how they like a program (Hanna,
Risden, & Alexander, 1997), we informed all children that we were not responsible for the design of this game so that they could talk
freely. Each child was interviewed separately and since children have difficulty reflecting on abstract ideas (Zwiers & Morisette, 1999) we
let them think back to the last time they played and explain what they did and why. Finally we also performed semi-structured telephone
interviews with the responsible teacher at each school in order to triangulate our findings with their impressions.
We based our analysis on Case Study (Yin, 1994) methodology, which is appropriate to answer ‘how’ and ‘why’ questions covering the
contextual conditions of a phenomenon. We used a multiple-case design represented by three schools offering different degrees of freechoice learning. We applied coding techniques using an initial coding scheme reflecting the two main questions concerning behaviour and
opinions to analyse our data. Our outcomes are by nature subjective and should not be considered either exhaustive or conclusive. However
by applying data triangulation (Mackay & Fayard, 1997) to the variety of data collections used and the several stakeholders involved in our
studies, our results can serve as a foundation for informing the design and classroom use of educational computer games.
3. Results
We will now present the results by answering each of the research questions related to behaviour with and opinions about the game. The
results of the control question related to previous experience are presented along with the results related to children’s opinions, as they
were all measured through the questionnaire.
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85
3.1. School A
3.1.1. Formal setting
Of the 14 children that were informed about the possibility to receive an account for the game only eight children initially indicated that
they were interested in playing the game: five boys and three girls. The teacher thought that there might be more children willing to play if
they saw that the game was fun. However, after the first eight children had received an account for the game no other children asked for an
account.
Only the five boys played the game within the formal learning setting during the test period. The first day that the children got access to
the game was a Friday. Four of the boys started playing immediately, whereas the fifth boy started playing at school the next Monday. None
of the girls played the game in the formal setting. When asked why they had not played, one of the girls explicitly said that she had too many
other things to do. The teacher of this school also stated:
Children here have so many other exciting activities to choose from that this activity is less popular in comparison
All boys only played once or twice in the formal setting, but only two of them covered many mini games and found many words during
this short period. The other three seemed to merely browse the game to see what is was like.
3.1.2. Informal setting
The two boys who played the most also played the game quite a lot during the weekend after they had received access to the game. The
other three boys and the girls did not play at home. After the first four days none of the children ever played at home.
A descriptive overview of the behaviour of these eight children in both the formal and informal setting is given in Table 1.
3.1.3. Sustained interest
Two children played the game after the testing period. One of them was a boy who had not played a lot before. He played two new mini
games and replayed two others. The other was one of the girls who had not played within the first four weeks (as shown in Table 1). In the
weeks after the test period she played one mini game and found 5 words. After that there was no activity with the game at all.
3.1.4. Questionnaire results
Only five children had played the game and could answer any questions about their expectations and experiences. The results are given
in Table 2.
The Wilcoxon Signed Rank test did not indicate a significant difference (p > .05) between children’s expectations and experiences, nor
between their grading of the game as a game or as a learning program.
3.2. School B
3.2.1. Formal setting
All fifty children of unit 3 that were informed about the possibility to receive an account for the game indicated that they were interested
in playing the game: 27 boys and 23 girls. Twelve of these children were only nine years old whereas the other 38 were between ten and
twelve years old. Since it was impossible to keep track of the activities of 50 children twice a day we decided to randomly pick ten of the 38
children from the correct age group to be followed intensively. The other 40 children were followed less intensively, usually once a day.
After four weeks 49 out of 50 children had played in school but there was a great variation in how much the children had played. 23
children had played ten or more mini games and detected 50 or more words, while the other 25 had done less.
3.2.2. Informal setting
During the four weeks testing period 26 children played at home at least once. For the 10 children closely followed we observed that
three of them had only played at school while the other 7 had also played at home. Furthermore, it was clear that playing at home was
mainly done during the first few days after the children had got access to the game. Later during the test period they restricted their playing
to the school environment.
A descriptive overview of the behaviour of the ten children who were followed most intensively is given in Table 3.
3.2.3. Sustained interest
Five children played the game in the weeks after the testing period. However, after the summer holidays an interesting phenomenon
occurred; children started playing again. In the telephone interview the teacher explained that some children had asked whether the
Table 1
Descriptive results of children at school A after four weeks.
Child
Gender
Number of
games in school
Number of
words in school
Number of
games at home
Number of
words at home
Number of
games replayed
Played
at home?
A1
A2
A3
A4
A5
A6
A7
A8
M
M
M
M
M
F
F
F
3
3
16
3
14
–
–
–
36
17
69
30
25
–
–
–
0
0
0
0
9
–
–
–
0
0
2
0
51
–
–
–
0
0
1
0
4
–
–
–
No
No
Yes
No
Yes
No
No
No
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W. Barendregt, T.M. Bekker / Computers & Education 56 (2011) 80–90
Table 2
Quantitative questionnaire results for school A, standard deviations between brackets.
Accumulated answers (n ¼ 5)
Question
How
How
How
How
How
a
often do you play computer games? (1 ¼ never; 5 ¼ almost every day)a
much fun did you think playing Hello You would be? (1 ¼ no fun; 5 ¼ a lot of fun)a
much fun was it to play Hello You? (1 ¼ no fun; 5 ¼ a lot of fun)
many smileys do you give to Hello You as a game? (0–5)
many smileys do you give to Hello You as a learning program? (0–5)
2.8
4.1
3.8
3.2
3.7
(1.3)
(0.6)
(0.8)
(0.8)
(1.6)
For this question n ¼ 8.
accounts still worked and if they could play again. Furthermore, there were many children that started unit 3 after the summer holidays who
had seen the older children playing the school year before. They also wanted to be able to play the game. When it became clear that the
accounts of the older children were still active the teacher decided that playing Hello You would be one of the English activities that children
could choose to do. Younger children that did not have a personal account could borrow an account from the older children. This resulted in
a lot of activity with the game, from the new children as well as the older children. Even children that had not played a lot during the testing
period started playing again.
3.2.4. Questionnaire results
All children except one (49) at this school filled out the questionnaire. The results are given in Table 4.
The Wilcoxon Signed Rank test did not indicate a significant difference (p > .05) between children’s expectations and experiences, nor
between their grading of the game as a game or as a learning program.
3.3. School C
3.3.1. Formal setting
At school C all eleven children in one combined class, six boys and five girls, received an account as arranged by their teacher.
The teacher arranged for the whole class that they could play the game three times. During the first lecture she asked the children to
focus on the game world and finding words. The other two lectures the children were allowed to play freely. It was however clear that the
children were very much focused on finding words. One of the children explicitly wrote in her report about playing the game:
The first day I looked around to understand how everything worked and what was there, [I] walked around en clicked the avatars to talk
to them.
I started talking to a lot of people in the different areas; by talking to them I gathered words for the dictionary. I played some games but
wanted much rather to find English words. Sometimes I talked to the spies [some of the non-player characters in the game world], and I
tried to find things they had lost.
3.3.2. Informal setting
Only two children played at home once. When the children were asked why they had not played at home many of them stated that they
had not understood that this was possible. A minority of the children indicated that they just did not like to play, while many others
answered that they did not know that they could play at home. Even more interestingly, one of the children changed the wording of this
question, answering that she did not know she was allowed to play at home. During the telephone interview with one of the children it was
also mentioned that this possibility had not become clear. However, in the interview with the teacher she stated that she had made this clear
on several occasions. During the testing period we had also urged her on several occasions to discuss this possibility since we noticed a very
low activity at home and were worried that she might have forgotten to mention it. It thus seems that even though the teacher probably
mentioned that the game could be played at home, this message was not received by the children.
A descriptive overview of the behaviour of all 11 children is given in Table 5.
3.3.3. Sustained interest
At school C many children were eager to keep on playing after the testing period. One of the children wrote in her report about the game:
I think it is really cool that I can keep playing this game until the end of the year. I am going to play a lot because I think it is a lot of FUN!!!
Table 3
Descriptive results of children at school B after four weeks.
Child
Gender
Number of
games in school
Number of
words in school
Number of
games at home
Number of
words at home
Number of
replayed games
Played
at home?
B1
B2
B3
B4
B5
B6
B7
B8
B9
B10
M
F
F
M
M
M
F
M
F
F
5
6
5
2
8
10
8
5
1
5
23
29
27
33
41
40
40
27
25
6
10
5
7
0
3
10
8
6
0
0
53
15
43
0
3
29
13
38
0
0
3
3
1
0
3
4
0
4
1
0
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
No
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87
Table 4
Quantitative questionnaire results for school B, standard deviations between brackets.
Accumulated answers (n ¼ 49)
Question
How
How
How
How
How
often do you play computer games? (1 ¼ never; 5 ¼ almost every day)
much fun did you think playing Hello You would be? (1 ¼ no fun; 5 ¼ a lot of fun)
much fun was it to play Hello You? (1 ¼ no fun; 5 ¼ a lot of fun)
many smileys do you give to Hello You as a game? (0–5)
many smileys do you give to Hello You as a learning program? (0–5)
3.5
4.1
4.0
3.1
3.0
(1.1)
(0.7)
(0.8)
(1.2)
(1.5)
Although this positive reaction could be related to younger children’s tendency to give socially desirable answers when a researcher asks
them how they like a program (Hanna et al., 1997), the interview with the teacher at this school revealed that the children repeatedly had
asked when they would be allowed to play again (which the teacher did not allow). This is a clear behavioural sign that children were
enthusiastic to keep playing the game.
3.3.4. Questionnaire results
At school C two children did not fill in the questionnaire since they were ill at the day the teacher held this activity. The results are given
in Table 6.
The Wilcoxon Signed Rank test did not indicate a significant difference (p > .05) between children’s expectations and experiences, nor
between their grading of the game as a game or as a learning program.
4. Discussion
After having presented the results for each school separately we will now turn to a discussion of the similarities and differences between
the schools. Subsequently we will present implications and conclusions based on these findings.
4.1. Formal setting
Children at the schools offering only limited-choice (school B) or no free-choice learning activities (school C) are the most interested in
playing the game at school. The children from the school offering only free-choice learning activities (school A) are less interested as can be
seen from the low number of accounts requested, the percentage of children actually playing, and the short-lived activity with the game by
the children who actually played. The teacher at this school mentioned:
Children here have so many other exciting activities to choose from that this activity is less popular in comparison
It thus seems that the game does not win the competition from other free-choice learning activities in school. This is rather surprising
since the game was initially designed as an informal learning activity, which Hofstein and Rosenfeld (1996, p. 90) characterises as follows:
Informal learning activities also may serve as a supplement to formal learning or even be used in schools or by teachers, but their
distinguishing characteristic is that they were developed for out-of-school learning in competition with other less challenging uses of
time.
Within the formal setting children in the non free-choice school were rather hesitant to freely choose activities within the game; even
when they were allowed to play freely some of them still tended to focus on the task given previously, as is illustrated by what one of the
girls writes in her report:
The first day I looked around to understand how everything worked and what was there, [I] walked around en clicked the avatars to talk
to them.
I started talking to a lot of people in the different areas; by talking to them I gathered words for the dictionary. I played some games but
wanted much rather to find English words. Sometimes I talked to the spies [some of the non-player characters in the game world], and I
tried to find things they had lost.
This is slightly in contrast with Ke’s (2008) findings supporting a common skepticism in using computer games for learning, namely that
‘game playing students may involve themselves in pursuit of pure entertainment as opposed to learning-oriented problem solving’. In this
Table 5
Descriptive results of 11 children at school C after four weeks.
Child
Gender
Number of
games in school
Number of
words in school
Number of
games at home
Number of
words at home
Number of
games replayed
Played
at home?
C1
C2
C3
C4
C5
C6
C7
C8
C9
C10
C11
F
F
M
M
F
M
M
F
F
M
M
6
3
8
10
4
6
6
3
8
7
8
31
66
37
55
20
34
50
40
58
46
53
6
0
0
1
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
15
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
4
0
0
0
0
0
1
1
0
0
0
Yes
No
No
Yes
No
No
No
No
No
No
No
88
W. Barendregt, T.M. Bekker / Computers & Education 56 (2011) 80–90
Table 6
Quantitative questionnaire results for school C, standard deviations between brackets.
Question
How
How
How
How
How
often do you play computer games? (1 ¼ never; 5 ¼ almost every day)
much fun did you think Hello You would be? (1 ¼ no fun; 5 ¼ a lot of fun)
much fun was it to play Hello You? (1 ¼ no fun; 5 ¼ a lot of fun)
many smileys do you give to Hello You as a game? (0–5)
many smileys do you give to Hello You as a learning program? (0–5)
Accumulated answers (n ¼ 9)
3.3
4.2
4.4
3.5
3.4
(0.5)
(0.4)
(0.5)
(0.8)
(1.0)
case it seems that the teacher-provided task of exploring the game world and finding words corresponded well with one of the game goals,
keeping children focused on the learning-oriented problem solving. It could even be speculated that for some children receiving a task is
a form of support, especially when they are no experienced computer game players. Furthermore, it is in line with Linn (1980, p. 246–247)
findings “that subjects profit from free-choice experiences after they have received direct instruction [suggesting that they] need some
guidance before they are likely to choose experiences that will help them learn.”
4.2. Informal setting
Whether the game is taken from the school to the home environment seems to depend mainly on how much the school environment
resembles the home environment in terms of how much choice children have in defining their learning activities. The fact that this game
was developed as an informal learning activity does not help to bridge that gap.
For children at the school offering only free-choice activities the boundaries between the formal and informal setting are not very sharp.
Those who like to play the game and thus play more than once do not really make a difference between the formal and informal setting and
play both at home and at school.
Children at the school offering a limited number of free-choice activities do not perceive the boundary between formal and informal settings so
clearly either; many of them play initially play both at school and at home. However, after a while the children start to choose this activity in the
formal setting only. The game playing activity probably compared less favourably with the out-of-school activities than with other school activities.
The interview with the teacher of school B underlined that children at this school generally tend to voluntarily do school-related activities at home.
They often make presentations at home about topics they are interested in without having been asked to do so.
Finally, at the school offering only no-choice activities the boundary between the formal and non-formal setting appears very clear. Only two
children played at home once, and many children stated that they had not even understood the possibility to play this game at home even though
the teacher had explained this at several occasions. One simple explanation could be that children in school C were generally less motivated to play
the game since they had not chosen to play it, as the children at the other two schools had. However, this was not visible from their answers in the
questionnaire about their expectations for the game. Their expectations were actually the highest (4.2 on a scale of 5), although not significantly so.
The same holds for their appreciation for and rating of the game. Furthermore, many children asked their teacher when they would be allowed to
play again and some explicitly asked us whether they could keep the game after the study.
4.3. Sustained interest
Only at school C children were very eager to continue playing in the weeks after the testing period, but they were not allowed to do so. At
school B the interest in playing was renewed after the summer holidays. It appears that the stream of younger children that had not played
the year before gave a new spark. According to Granovetter (1978) people have a ‘threshold’ for how large a group of initial participants in an
activity must be before they join in. These thresholds are different for each individual. However, whenever the initial group is large enough
a snowball-effect can occur, attracting more and more participants. This might have happened at school B when the new children started
playing the game as well.
A common suggestion of the children was to the change the game so that it is possible to see other players and talk to them. Implementing
this feature could strengthen the group effect once there is a significant number of active players. By seeing each other in the game world the
players become more aware of the adoption of the game by the group and this can create a game community that sustains itself (Markus,1987).
4.4. Opinions and experience
We used the non-parametric permutation t-test for unequal and small sample sizes of the PAST software (Hammer, Harper, & Ryan, 2001)
to check whether there were significant differences between the schools for any of the quantitative questions related to opinions and
previous experience in the questionnaire. There are no significant differences (p > .05) between the three schools concerning any of the
questions in the questionnaire (previous gaming experience, expectation, enjoyment, smileys for the game, and smileys for the learning
program), which may be explained by the small sample sizes for two of the schools. All children were rather experienced in playing
computer games, had generally high expectations about the game and appreciated playing the game. Interesting to note is that there is
a non-significant tendency that the expectations were not fulfilled for children at the two schools offering the most choice, whereas the
expectations of the children at the school offering no free-choice were exceeded.
Of further interest is the absence of a significant difference for any of the questions between school C and the other two schools. At school
A and B there is a possible self-selection bias, which is absent in school C. However, this does not result in any significant differences between
children’s expectations or evaluation of the game.
An important methodological conclusion we can draw from these results is probably that a study of the actual behaviour of the children
with the game is more revealing than their answers to a questionnaire. Children of the different schools show clearly different behaviour
that can be explained by the levels of choice for the learning activity, whereas the questionnaire is not able to capture these differences.
W. Barendregt, T.M. Bekker / Computers & Education 56 (2011) 80–90
89
Fig. 4. Differences and similarities in terms of playing behaviour between the schools related to the freedom-control continuum.
5. Implications
5.1. Educational games in the classroom
Squire (2005, p. 5) argues that ‘the real challenge is not so much in bringing gamesdor any technologydinto our schools but rather
changing the cultures of our schools to be organized around learning instead of the current form of social control.’ He furthermore states:
As a former Montessori teacher, I can easily imagine students using Civilization III to investigate historical questions within that system,
a system which is organized around students pursuing questions of intellectual interest. The system also affords considerable freedom, so
those students less interested in this particular game could pursue other activities.
Two of the schools in this study also afford the students considerable freedom, albeit on different levels. Our findings indicate that if the
school’s system makes playing an educational game an activity that has to compete with a free range of other activities, it has a hard time
winning the competition. On the other hand, if the game is used within a usually rather controlling school culture, children tend to depend
on the teacher’s instructions. The most fruitful environment for an educational game like Hello You seems to be within a school system
affording considerable freedom, but with a focus on predefined learning activities. Within such a system students who are initially less
interested in a particular game may be drawn in later on when a large enough group starts to play, creating a snowball-effect.
5.2. Educational games design
Children’s comments about this game give rise to some design implications. First of all, children indicated that it is very important that
the game provides the possibility of seeing other players in the game world and talking to them. Children expected this possibility from an
Internet-based game and they also indicated that this would increase learning possibilities. Finally, this functionality can help to sustain
a player community within the game, thereby lowering the threshold for some children to join in. A requirement for meaningful
communication between the players is that player characters can be recognized as individuals instead of a general character. The children’s
wish to be able to adapt their avatar coincides with this requirement.
Children’s playing behaviour gives another design implication. Children (re)played the fast-paced motor-skill mini games most often, but
those mini games were usually not the ones requiring the player to use or understand English. It would be interesting to try to integrate
learning possibilities in this type of game. For example, in the mini game Stuntman it might be possible to have enemies and victims that can
be distinguished from each other through what they are saying. The player should then try to rescue the victims and avoid the enemies.
Evaluating the motivational and educational effectiveness of this combination could be a topic for future research.
Finally, educational game designers should also thoroughly consider how to position the game in the market. In this case the game was
positioned as an informal learning activity, but the children in our study found it less appealing than other leisure-time activities. The game
therefore did not become very popular. Positioning the game as a formal learning activity and supplying teachers with ideas for how to use it
in their classrooms could make the game more successful.
6. Conclusions
We wanted to explore the differences in behaviour with and opinions about an educational computer game at three schools offering
different levels of choice. Concerning children’s behaviour we were interested in their playing in the formal setting, their playing in the
informal setting, and sustained interest. Concerning children’s opinions we were interested in their expectations, and whether those were
fulfilled, and their evaluation of Hello You as a game and as a learning program. As a control question we were interested in whether there
were any differences between the schools in children’s computer gaming experience. There were no significant differences in experience or
any of the opinion-related questions. However, there were a number of interesting differences and similarities in children’s general
behaviour. By placing these differences and similarities in behaviour in the freedom-control continuum the general trends become clearer
(Fig. 4).
At the school offering free-choice children’s interest is limited, but those who like to play do so in both the formal and informal setting. At
the school offering limited free-choice, the initial interest is high and children tend to play in the formal and informal setting. Later on the
use is limited to the formal setting so it is not immediately sustained. However, interest in playing in the formal setting is renewed after new
children join in the playing. At the school offering no free-choice children focus on the task given by the teacher and they only play
sporadically in the informal setting. However, they do wish to continue playing in the formal setting, but are not allowed to.
90
W. Barendregt, T.M. Bekker / Computers & Education 56 (2011) 80–90
It should be emphasized that this is an explorative study of one specific educational game with small samples of students from three
schools. In line with offering different levels of free-choice learning activities these schools may attract different types of parents and
children. Cautions should therefore be exercised when generalizing the study findings to similar situations on other types of schools.
However, the study indicates that children’s behaviour with an educational computer game might depend on the specific formal and
informal learning settings in which the game is offered. Further research of the precise nature of this dependency is needed.
The set up of this study is rather complex and therefore probably does not cover all the aspects of choice in formal and informal learning
in relation to the use of an educational computer game. It would therefore be useful to break up this study into several studies involving
more children in order to get more detailed knowledge about the different factors influencing children’s behaviour. Furthermore, this study
restricted itself to effects on playing behaviour and opinions about the game and did not measure learning effectiveness. Further research is
necessary to understand how these findings influence learning effectiveness of an educational computer game.
Acknowledgements
We thank all children and their teachers for their participation in this study. We also thank the participants of the MUL seminar at
Gothenburg University for their valuable input on a first draft on the article. Finally, we thank Margje Post from Bergen University and Halbe
Huitema for their thorough reviews.
Hello You was developed by Marcus Vlaar from Ranj Serious Games. The graphical style for the game was developed by Mark Bode/PANC
represented by Shop Around. Blink Uitgevers has recently taken over Hello You from Malmberg.
Appendix. Supplementary data
Supplementary data associated with this article can be found, in the online version, at doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2010.08.018.
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