| 摘要: | 隨著全球化的發展，英語已成為重要的國際化語言，也是許多非英語系國家學習的第二語言，然而，在英語學習環境的現況中，學習者語言程度的落差，容易讓低成就學生無法得到成就感;教師對學生的傳統教學方式，容易讓學生感到無趣乏味。而許多研究指出數位遊戲式學習的優點，能讓學習者在遊戲裡完成挑戰與解決困難達到學習目標，其擁有的娛樂與學習兩種特性能夠增加學習的趣味性，是一種具有影響力的學習方式。
數位遊戲式學習也被研究者應用在英語學習上，而在數位遊戲式英語學習中又以單字的學習為主，然而，多是以單一面向角度及關卡來學習英語單字，因此，本研究開發一套具有多元面向學習單字的數位遊戲式英語學習系統，加入了一個學習任務及三個遊戲任務關卡，學習任務是培養學習者句義之間的英語邏輯連結的能力，三個遊戲任務關卡乃是讓學習者從不同的面向來複習學習任務中出現的單字。
雖然數位遊戲式學習有其優點，可是它也有一些缺點，例如，遊戲的玩樂成分過多時，容易讓學習者產生沉迷的效果。此外，遊戲中豐富的媒體元素，容易讓學習者產生認知負荷。由於這些缺點，因此並非所有學習者都適合這樣的學習方式，並且一些實證研究也指出，具有遊戲化功能的數位學習，不一定都能比無遊戲化功能的學習方式有效。這些分歧點都是因為學習者之間也存在著個體差異，因此，有必要從個體差異的角度來研究。
在眾多個體差異中，性別差異是一個相對固定且不可改變的變量。此外，一些研究也指出性別差異確實會影響學習者對遊戲式學習的態度，然而，也有一些研究並未發現性別差異，有鑑於此，本研究有必要將性別差異列入探討，以提供性別如何影響遊戲式學習的經驗證據。本研究的實驗對象為台灣北部某大專院校生，並進行一項實證研究，根據性別的角度來探討數位遊戲式英語學習系統對於學習者學習英語的影響，包括學習偏好、學習成效、學習行為及相關性分析。
本研究的結果顯示，男性和女性在使用數位遊戲式英語學習系統時存在著性別差異。
例如在學習偏好方面，男性在大部分的提示次數皆顯著高於女生，有此可知，男性會使用不同類型的輔助工具來幫助自己學習，而女性則沒有特別的提示使用偏好。而在學習成效方面，男性在具有糾正反饋設計的遊戲關卡後有了顯著的進步分數，而女性在所有關卡皆無顯著的進步分數，由此可知，錯誤時能得到了再一次的學習機會，這樣的設計能讓男性有較多學習上的受益，而女性在各遊戲得分表現都為相似。
在學習行為方面，男性遊戲中偏好答題與遊玩幫助交互使用方式進行遊戲，而女性偏好先答題完再將使用遊玩幫助來進行遊戲。而在相關性分析方面，男性在使用刪去選項與答題效率、遊戲分數呈顯著負相關，也與遊戲時間呈顯著正相關，由此可知，學習意願不高的男性，會使用猜測的方式進行答題，進而影響遊戲的表現。女性在使用單字提示次數與遊戲分數、答題效率呈顯著負相關，由此可知，單字知識量不足的女性無法在遊戲學習中受益。
總而言之，本研究結果有助於深入了解如何建設計一套能適應不同性別學習者的數位遊戲式英語學習系統。因此本研究的貢獻在於，可以幫助研究者、教學者、學生、和設計者在性別差異上有更全面性的了解。並促進未來數位遊戲式學習的發展。
;Along with the development of globalization, English has become an important international language and the second language for many non-native English-speaking countries. However, the gap in language proficiency level of English learners is unlikely to make low achievers to develop the sense of achievement in current English learning environment. On the other hand, traditional teaching methods adopted by teachers may make students feel bored. Previous studies have pointed out that Digital Game-Based Learning (DGBL) have many advantages. For example, it allows learners to achieve learning goals via overcoming difficult challenges provided by digital games. DGBL can greatly influence student learning as it combines the characteristics of education and entertainment to stimulate students to have learning motivation.
DGBL is also applied to improve English learning in previous work. In particular, DGBL is widely used to help students learn English vocabulary. However, most of these previous works focused on a single aspect. Therefore, this study attempted to develop an English DGBL system (EDS), which was concerned with multiple aspects. Accordingly, this EDS consisted of one learning task and three game tasks. When undertaking the learning tasks, learners’ abilities in English logical thinking could be developed via identifying connections between each sentence. On the other hand, the gaming tasks was employed to help students recall English vocabulary presented in the learning task.
Nevertheless, DGBL still has some disadvantages. For example, learners might be addicted in entertainment elements provided by digital games. In addition, DGBL includes rich media, which might students experience cognitive overload. As a result of these s disadvantages, not all learners are suitable for DGBL. Furthermore, some empirical studies have also indicated that digital learning with gamified functions is not necessarily more effective than the learning approach without gamified functions. These differences might be caused by a fact that individual differences exist among all learners. In consequence, it is necessary to conduct empirical research from the perspective of individual differences.
Among various individual differences, gender is a relatively fixed and not malleable variable. Additionally, some studies indicated that gender differences would really affect learners’ learning attitude in DGBL. However, some studies found that gender differences were not influential. Therefore, there is a need to conduct further empirical studies to collect more evidence on how gender differences affect DGBL. To this end, an empirical study was conducted to investigate the effects of gender differences on the use of the EDS, in terms of learning preferences, learning performance, learning behavior and correlations among such variables.
The participants of this study were research students in a university in Taiwan. The results of this study indicated that males and females showed different reactions to the EDS. Regarding learning preferences, males more frequently used different types of hints than females. In particular, males used diverse tools to assist themselves while no such significant preferences were shown for females. Regarding learning performance, males obtained significant gain scores in the game task with corrective feedback while females did not demonstrate such a tendency. That is to say, males could benefit from the second-chance learning when their first answers were wrong while it might not be beneficial to females.
Regarding learning behavior, males preferred to move between giving answers and playing games. Conversely, females preferred to give answers first and then to play the game. Regarding correlations among such variables, the frequencies of males using the deletion method was significantly negatively correlated with answering efficiency and game scores, and was also significantly positively correlated with time spent for playing the digital game. These findings implied that males who were not willing to learn tended to take a guessing approach so that their performance could be negatively affected. In contrast, the frequencies of females using the vocabulary hint was significantly negatively correlated with game scores and answering efficiency. In other words, females without knowing sufficient vocabulary cannot benefit from DGBL.
In summary, this research contributes to develop the deep understandings of how to design DGBL that can be suitable for males and females. Moreover, such understandings could help researchers, teachers, students and designers have comprehensive understandings of the effects of gender differences. By doing so, gender differences can be minimized. |
