| dc.description.abstract | Digital game-based learning has many positive impacts because it not only contains the essence of digital learning, but also has the game elements, such as fun and competition, thereby reducing the boredom of learning English vocabulary and hence improving learners’ motivation. Therefore, digital game-based learning is widely used to support English learning, especially English vocabulary. Therefore, this study takes its advantages and proposed an online game-based English vocabulary learning system. This system has two major features: (1) carrying out the program via Internet to have an instant feedback; (2) adopting an innovative method by dragging each alphabetic letter as an input for a new word, which can not only increase the fun, but also allow learners to freely combine letters without being restricted by the sequence when answering questions. This free combination is related to the learners’ abilities in organizing information, and the process of organizing information is linked to the individuals’ cognitive styles. Learners with different cognitive styles tend to process information in different ways. Furthermore, if the system can provide suitable scaffolding instruction according to different learners′ information processing approaches, it will help learners overcome learning obstacles and improve learning effectiveness. Therefore, cognitive style is a key factor affecting student learning. Given the critical influences of cognitive styles and the lack of literature examining the impacts of cognitive style on game-based English vocabulary learning, there is a need to fill this research gap. More specifically, this study utilizes this system for an empirical study. The experimental subjects are master students from a university in Taoyuan. The impact of the online game-based English vocabulary learning system is explored from a cognitive style perspective, including learning performance, learning rewards, learning preferences, learning behaviors and the analysis of its correlation.
According to the results of this study, there were some similarities and differences between holists and serialists when they interacted with the online game-based English vocabulary learning system. In the aspects of similarities, holists and serialists demonstrated similar learning performance and learning rewards. On the other hand, in the aspects of differences between these two cognitive styles, serialists obtained significantly higher hint scores at each level than holists. This finding suggested that serialists preferred to use the scaffolding hints. In the connecting game, serialists more frequently used Chinese sentence hints than holists, which indicates that the former depend more on Chinese hints than the latter. In addition, results from the lag sequential analysis showed that holists were task-oriented and selected the hints according to the needs of the task. When encountering an error, holists selected different hints based on the game level at that time. In contrast, serialists used hints intensively, selecting other options only when their errors to the questions exceeded the allowed limits. Serialists also tended to select the first Chinese hints when they gave wrong answers. This finding suggested that the order of the hint affected the choices of serialists whereas holists did not exhibit this behavior. Therefore, such findings can be used to arrange the hint order based on the learners’ preference.
Furthermore, the results also showed that learners may change their original learning approaches when facing new learning environments. For example, in online game levels, holists firstly chose word hints and then to choose Chinese example sentence hints. In other words, they started from a small scope. Conversely, serialists first chose Chinese example sentence hints, and then to choose single-word hints. In other words, they started from a large scope. More specifically, holists tended to use a top-down learning approach whereas serialist preferred to use a bottom-up learning approach. However, holists and serialists changed their habitual way of learning when interacting with a new online game environment.
In terms of correlation analysis, learners who used fewer initial and final letter hints tended to achieve higher game scores; conversely, those who used more initial and final letter hints tended to have lower game scores. On the other hand, learners who used more voice hints tend to spend more time playing the game. Additionally, holists who used more Chinese hints tended to spend a longer time on the game. However, not every instance of using Chinese hints in the game showed a significant positive correlation. For serialists, there is no significant correlation between the frequency of using Chinese hints and the game duration.
All in all, this study can help to gain a deeper understanding of the learning behaviors and learning preferences of different cognitive style groups in learning English vocabulary, thus helpful in improving the learning approaches. Therefore, the contribution of this study is to provide researchers, system designers, teachers, and students with a more comprehensive understanding of English vocabulary learning for learners with different cognitive styles, thereby promoting the development of online game-based English vocabulary learning. | en_US |