| dc.description.abstract | English is the current international language. There are many people who learn English, and they need to practice repeatedly in the process of learning English. However, learners may think that they feel boring. Therefore, there are studies using game-based learning to make the learning environment easy and interesting, thereby improving learning performance. In English learning, pronunciation is also a very important part, but there are few opportunities to practice English pronunciation both in and outside the course. Automatic speech recognition can help learners to practice pronunciation without embarrassment, thereby feeling relaxed when learning a foreign language and enhance the learning performance. Therefore, this study developed a system ＂Legendary Island Adventure＂ that combined massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) and English pronunciation learning. It was developed on the basis of the MMORPG to provide learners with an English pronunciation learning environment with automatic voice recognition mechanism. In addition, the badge mechanism in the game provides clear achievement goals, encourages learners to invest in learning, and strive to achieve the conditions to obtain badges, thereby improving the degree of engagement and learning performance. Although there have been previous studies on the difference between whether or not the badge mechanism is available, they are mostly used on the gamification mechanism or the application of online teaching platforms, there are few studies that combine English pronunciation learning in a digital game-based learning environment and explore the difference between whether there are badges or not. Therefore, the system of this study was divided into two versions of systems with badges and without badges, and combined English pronunciation content with different tasks, allowing learners to perform tasks in a game-based English pronunciation learning environment while learning pronunciation of English words and sentences. This study aimed to investigate the effects of learners with or without badge mechanisms on English pronunciation performance, gaming performance, gaming flow experience and behavioral patterns in a game-based English pronunciation learning environment, and the correlation of various variables. The study included 44 learners, who were assigned to the badge or non-badge group. The experiment time was 90 minutes.
The results showed that the digital game-based learning system developed by this study improved learners′ English pronunciation skills. The pronunciation performance of learners with or without the badge mechanism improved significantly, and the pronunciation performance of the learners in the badge group was significantly better than the learners in the non-badge group. It can be seen that the pronunciation performance of learners with badges improved more than that of learners without badges.
Game performance was divided into three categories: learning, gaming and assistance. In terms of learning, the learners with badges had significant starting learning tasks, learning tasks completion times, speaking times, a single accuracy rate of 90%, the entire learning task accuracy rate of 90%, and the average accuracy rate of all tasks, which was higher than the learners without badges. The learners with badges in the gaming category were significantly higher in the number of gold coins, ability points and levels than the learners without badges. In the assistance category, there was no significant difference between the two groups.
In the part of gaming flow, the students in the badge group had higher overall flow, and had higher control and fun, but there was no significant difference between the two groups in the part of engagement. In addition, in the correlation part, it was found that there was no significant correlation between the English pronunciation learning performance, the gaming performance and the gaming flow. The mostly gaming performance of gaming category were positively related to the gaming performance of learning category and gaming performance of assistance category. Gaming flow was positively correlated with the performance of some gaming performance of learning category.
The above results showed that the digital game-based English pronunciation learning environment in this study can help learners with or without a badge mechanism improve their English pronunciation learning performance, and digital badges can help learners increase game and learning-related behaviors, effectively improving the number of pronunciation practice of learners, thereby improving the learner’s English pronunciation accuracy. The results of this study are helpful to understand the performance and behavior of learners with or without badges in the game. This system allows researchers to design game content based on different medal mechanisms when developing a digital game-based learning environment in the future. | en_US |