| dc.description.abstract | Reading is essential to elementary students. However, many students have difficulty in reading because they lack reading motivation. Digital game-based learning (DGBL) integrated learning and gaming. The gaming part attracts learners to use, and the learning part supports their learning performance. Thus, the DGBL for reading is a solution to help reading.
Individual differences affect students’ how to use the DGBL. Reading ability and gaming experience are most important among numerous individual differences because DGBL integrates gaming and learning. However, insufficient attention has been paid to investigating how reading ability and gaming experience affect learners to use the DGBL. To this aim, this research developed the Game-based Ancient Literature App (GALA) to investigate how reading abilitiy and gaming experience affected learners’ reading motivation, gaming motivation, perceptions, and in-game achievements.
A total of 53 elementary students in Hualien County participated in this study. The participants used the GALA once a week for 40 minutes, lasting for three months. The Mandarin literacy course scores divided participants into the high reading ability group (HRA) and the low reading ability group (LRA). The gaming experience questionnaire divided participants into the high gaming experience group (HGE) and the low gaming experience group (LGE). This research used questionaries to survey learners’ reading motivation and perceptions. The in-game achievements were collected automatically by the system.
The results showed that the HRA learners’ reading motivation and perceptions were higher than LRA learners. The HRA learners had more reading motivation and felt the DGBL was helpful while using the DGBL to support reading. In addition, perceptions were found to have significant positive correlations with accuracy rate, number of stars, and stage score for HRA learners. The HRA learners’ in-game achievements were improved if they were more satisfied with the DGBL. The LRA learners’ reading motivation was significant but negatively correlated with the range of grade level. The LRA learners do not have enough reading ability. When they had higher reading motivation, they would like to read the ancient Chinese content they were familiar with. Thus, the range of grade level would be narrow.
This research also found that the reading motivation of HGE learners was lower than that of LGE learners. Most HGE learners spend too much time playing video games but not learning. Thus, their reading motivation was lower. In addition, the range of grade level was found to have a significant but negative correlation with reading motivation, as well as accuracy for the HGE learners. The HGE learners had rich experience in playing commercial video games. The game part of DGBL could not attract them. They would not challenge more game stages when they had higher reading motivation. Thus, their range of grade level was narrower. The LGE learners had a significant positive correlation between gaming motivation and perception, range of grade level, as well as average grade level. The relationship between average grade level and stage score was positively correlated only for LGE learners. When LGE learners had higher gaming motivation, they were more satisfied with the DGBL and had better learning and gaming achievement.
This study includes two aspects of contributions: theories and applications. For the former, this study used empirical evidence to provide a deep understanding of the effects of reading abilitiy and gaming experience on reading motivation, gaming motivation, perceptions, and in-game achievements. According to this understanding, designers could develop a personalized DGBL system in which the learners’ individual differences (i.e., reading ability and gaming experience) could be removed. For the latter, this study revealed how to design a DGBL for reading to reduce the differences in effects on DGBL for those learners with different reading abilities and gaming experiences. In addition, this study provided more detail to teachers to understand the effects of individual differences on DGBL. Thus, teachers could provide better support to students. Finally, this study provided students with a DGBL environment to learn ancient Chinese literature in which individual differences could be reduced.
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