An Educational System Development Game

Abstract

Educational computer games have been around for a long time. However, the work that is being done on educational computer games is mainly focused on an elementary school level. We feel that it is high time that educational computer games took the step into universities. To test the potential of using such games at a university level, we decided to develop our own game. In order to find out more about the important aspects of educational game design, we explored the research done within the field. Based on this research we decided to base our game on the old classic Jones in the Fast Lane. We chose this game type because it is possible to balance the important elements of motivation, entertainment and learning. The game featured educational content from one of the beginner courses for system development at the University of Oslo, namely Inf1050. This course covers a lot of the basic aspects of system development like system development strategies, relational databases and data models. We tested the game on students attending the INF1050 course in the spring of 2008. Our test results showed that those students who responded are excited about the use of educational computer games. They expressed that they potentially could learn a lot if such games were used as a supplement to the regular curriculum. We also see that there is a huge potential for using educational computer games to increase the time students spend on their studies. Through the development of this game and our testing, we see that the most important factors in an educational computer game are entertainment and motivation. The entertainment needs to be present in order to keep the attention of the player, while motivation encourage the player to play the game. We conclude that if one merge the aspects of motivation, entertainment and education, it is possible to make educational games that students at a university level would enjoy and learn knowledge from while playing.