Author: Mohannad Fahad N Bin Jamaan
Bin Jamaan, Mohannad Fahad N, 2020 Development and evaluation of serious games to assist nursing language acquisition of international students, Flinders University, College of Science and Engineering
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The domain of serious games relates to the use of games and game mechanics for nonentertainment purposes. This thesis presents the development of two serious games followed by a pilot usability study. Both games were designed to help international students retain discipline language, specifically nursing students. The project aims to answer the question: Can Serious Games improve the discipline language for international students? With a focus in this thesis on the usability aspect. The developed games are Brevissima and Medicina. Brevissima trains students in recognising medical abbreviations, while Medicina trains students to become familiar with accurate medicine names. In Medicina, users are exposed to scientific and commercial medicine names. Both games make use of visual and audio exposure and employ educational theories.
The literature review of this thesis reviews serious game design concepts, game mechanics, and examples of educational games. Also, it reviews some related topics such as game design documentation. The thesis discusses each developed game from different areas such as the development, the educational-based theories, and concepts. The usability of these games will be discussed, and an evaluation of the developed games compared to existing games. The pilot study uses a quantitative research approach. The procedure of the study has three main steps. Firstly, a pre-test to the participants. Secondly, the participants play games for two weeks. Finally, a posttest is given to the participants. The participants study at the College of Nursing and Health Sciences at Flinders University. The pilot study questionaries were adapted from the system usability scale – SUS, a game evaluation scale and a game evaluation framework. The result of the pilot study shows a satisfactory usability level. However, game enjoyment and engagement may need improvement. Future work suggested includes evaluating the games with a larger group and developing the design elements that were subsequently removed from the pilot study prototype games
Keywords: Serious Games, Educational Games, Medecina, Brevissima , game usability
Subject: Computer Science thesis
Thesis type: Masters
Completed: 2020
School: College of Science and Engineering
Supervisor: Brett Wilkinson