| dc.description.abstract | Digital game-based learning (DGBL) contained many game elements. These game elements can provide pleasant learning experience for learners. Thus, it is often applied in a variety of fields. English learning is one of these fields. English learning includes four aspects, which are listening, speaking, reading and writing. Among them, listening is very important. Therefore, DGBL is often used to support listening learning. Listening learning consists of two parts. One part is vocabulary listening while the other part is sentence listening. The complexity of these two parts is different. However, few studies examined how students reacted to these two parts differently.
On the other hand, scaffolding hints can reduce the frustration of students. Nevertheless, paucity of past research integrated scaffolding hints into digital game-based English learning. To fill in this gap, this research incorporated scaffolding hints digital game-based English listening learning. However, there are diverse scaffolding hints. On the other hand, learners have various background, knowledge and skills so that they may prefer scaffolding hints differently. In other words, individual differences play an important role. Prior knowledge is one of influential individual differences. This is because everyone has different levels of knowledge in a specific field. Accordingly, two empirical studies were conducted to examine the impacts of prior knowledge on the use of digital game-based English listening learning, in terms of learning performance and learning behavior. The participants of these two studies were students who studied in a university in the northern Taiwan, regardless of Study One or Study Two. Study One focused on vocabulary listening while Study Two emphasized on sentence listening.
More specifically, Study One investigated how High Prior Knowledge (HPK) learners and Low Prior Knowledge (LPK) learners used DGBL to learn vocabulary listening. The results indicated that great differences existed between HPK learners and LPK learners, in terms of learning performance and learning behavior. Regarding learning performance, significant differences were found for both synonyms and antonyms. HPK learners performed better than LPK learners, regardless of task scores, deducted hint scores or answer status. Regarding learning behavior, there were great differences between HPK learners and LPK learners, irrespective of synonyms or antonyms. In the aspect pf synonyms, HPK learners used a variety of strategies to complete the tasks while LPK learners adopted fixed strategies. In the aspect of antonyms, HPK learners tended to make large-scale movement while LPK learners preferred to make small-scale movement.
Study Two investigated how HPK learners and LPK learners used DGBL to learn sentence listening. Like Study One, HPK learners and LPK learners showed different learning performance and learning behavior. Regarding learning performance, HPK learners performed better than LPK learners, regardless of learning tasks or gaming tasks. This might be because there were high correlations between the learning tasks and the gaming tasks in Study Two. Regarding learning behavior, there were many differences between HPK learners and LPK learners. For instance, HPK learners preferred to solve problems by themselves while LPK learners looked for other problem-solving strategies. Furthermore, HPK learners tended to obtain clues from a single scaffolding hint while LPK learners preferred to obtain clues from many scaffolding hints.
In summary, the results from these two studies showed that HPK learners and LPK learners used different learning approaches for different types of English listening contexts. Regarding vocabulary listening, HPK learners adopted multiple strategies to solve problems while LPK learners used fixed strategies to solve problems. Regarding sentence listening, HPK learners preferred to obtain clues from a single scaffolding hint and solved problems by themselves while LPK learners tended to acquire clues from many scaffolding hints to sort out problems. The aforementioned results not only showed differences existed between HPK learners and LPK learners, but also indicated that learners adopt different approaches for vocabulary listening and sentence listening. Therefore, the contribution of this research covered two aspects. One was results from the two empirical studies, which could be used to develop personalized English listening learning to cater for the needs of learners with different levels of prior knowledge. The other was to provide guidance for instructors and designers. By doing so, they could know how to use different strategies to develop digital learning tools for vocabulary listening and sentence listening. | en_US |